


Everyone Comes To Pan's

by Roxy_palace



Series: Pan Verse [1]
Category: Bandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fae, Amnesia, Dragons, Fae & Fairies, Goat Cock, M/M, Magic, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Sex Magic, Shape Shifters, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-26
Updated: 2012-04-26
Packaged: 2017-11-04 08:34:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 35,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Roxy_palace/pseuds/Roxy_palace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Second street on the left, and straight on till Mornington Crescent. Tell them Pete sent you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everyone Comes To Pan's

**Author's Note:**

> Written for bandomreversebb2012 at LJ, for art prompt #26. Thank you first of all to my artist for creating such charming, inspiring, and gorgeous art. I hope you enjoy the fic! I kind of went off piste with it, but your pictures were clear in my mind the whole time. Thanks also my number one beta and cheerleader, Anna Unfolding , and the to the best first reader I could have hoped for, Halfeatenmoon . Also, so much love and affection to my Twitter flist for cheering me on and putting up with my whining - I love you guys! Finally a thousand thanks to the mods for running this event and for putting up with my shocking lateness. Thanks guys!  
> This fic has a couple of key influences: Albion - a wonderful detailed book on British folklore, the creepy 70s version of Willy Wonka, Peter Pan of course, and The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams.

"This is the haunt of the few gentle Fays who remain from the wreck of the race. "  
\- Edgar Allen Poe  
  
*  
  
"Come on Mr. Pollack, you can't fire me! It's a week out from Christmas."  
  
Frank stood in the middle of the kitchen, a tray of wet and dripping dishes in his hands, his hair net slipping over one ear. His face was warm from the heat of the sink he'd been slaving over for the past couple hours during the dinner rush; warmer now that his boss had just dropped a bombshell on him.  
  
"Frank, buddy, I'm not _firing_ you. I just," he sighed and shuffled through the small brown envelopes through his sausage fat fingers, and chewed the unlit stub of a cigar from one side of his mouth to the other. Frank tipped back his head and looked at the ceiling.  
  
Pollack sighed. "Things are tough all over and I gotta let you go. I'm sorry," he finished with a shrug, holding one of the little envelopes out to Frank.  
  
"Fuck," Frank said, hefting the tray onto the drying rack before wiping his hands on his apron and taking the envelope. It felt pretty thin. Frank tugged off his hair net. "Fuck, man."  
  
"I'm really sorry, kid,” Pollack said, patting Frank on the shoulder as he walked past.  
  
"Sure," Frank sighed. His name was scrawled in red on the front of the envelope. _Lero, F._ "Sure you are."  
  
Frank took his time packing up the stuff in his locker. _Sacked. Again._ This clearly was not Frank’s year. It was just a crummy assed job doing dishes, but the thing at Pollack’s was the fourth job he’d lost in 8 months.  
  
Frank stuffed his hair net into the bottom of his back pack.  
  
The lockers were tucked away in a backroom of the kitchens. Just a couple of free standing ones, like the kind you got in high school only smaller, and smelling, impossibly, worse than anything Frank could remember from his youth. Frank heard the door to the storeroom open.  
  
“...and canned the guy.”  
  
Frank didn’t recognize the voice off the bat; he’d only been there a couple of months but the waiters had mostly been dicks, too big and important to talk to the pot scrubber. And as for the chefs? Forget about it.  
  
“Jeez, thank Christ. I swapped out as many shifts as I could to steer clear of him. I know a fucking Jonas when I see one. Hey, hey, pass me the self raising.”  
  
Frank loosened his grip on his back pack. He turned to say something - he didn’t know what, but _something_.  
  
“For the love of -,” the second voice said, straining under the weight of lifting something heavy. “Dude, don’t start that shit again...”  
  
“I’m telling you,” the first guy cut in. “The guy was a Class A screw up. And a klutz! How many plates has he broken? I mean, I’m pretty sure he could curdle milk just by looking at it. He’s that useless. I’m not kidding.”  
  
“Is this like that time you swore the Sous Chef was stealing sticks of butter to grease his roller skates?” The second voice groaned. Frank heard the sound of heavy things being dragged across the floor and the door opening again.  
  
The first guy laughed. “Say what you like, but that guy? A jinx in any kitchen.”  
  
The sound of the storeroom door slamming shut behind the voices jolted Frank. He shoved the rest of his gear into his pack and bolted out the back doors.  
  
Out on the street it wasn't snowing yet, but the clouds above were groaning grey-blue with the weight of it. The wind whipped down Chancery, and Frank turned the collar of his denim jacket up and pushed his hands deep into the pockets as he walked into it. _Goddamnit_ .  
  
He couldn’t really blame the chefs for the things they’d said. It wasn’t like it was the first time he’d heard it after all.  
  
Frank couldn’t explain it, but lately he _was_ a fucking jinx in the kitchen. Everything he touched turned to shit.  
  
In the job before Pollack’s he broke every second dish he washed. Before that he made a sack of flour explode and in the one before that, the live lobster tank in front of the restaurant smashed while he was cleaning it and half the lobsters escaped down a storm drain. To be honest, Frank didn’t really feel too bad about getting the sack for that. Live lobster restaurants were total bullshit anyway.  
  
 _On the trash heap at fucking Christmas._ How the fucking fuck was this his life? It wasn't easy getting work; not many people ready to believe a guy covered in as much ink as Frank was worth a shot, even if it was just washing dishes and scrubbing floors. But kitchen shit was all he knew how to do. It was his _thing_ , even if, for some reason he sucked at it right now.  
  
Frank knew he could be better. He just had to find the right place for him, the right kitchen. And when he did, he knew the pace, the sound, the physical exertion - getting it _right_ , getting people fed well - _that_ would be all he needed in life. When everything went right in a kitchen, it was an almost zen high – it was worth waiting for.  
  
Frank shivered in the thin denim and wrapped his crummy excuse for a scarf round his face. _Fuck it_ , he didn’t even have a proper coat for winter, let alone a kitchen to screw up in.  
  
If he was lucky, he had enough in his severance envelope to make it through the next couple of weeks; it wasn't like he had a million people to buy gifts for anyway. Well, there was Bob, but Frank was pretty sure he'd be happy with a six pack and bag of Cheetos. He'd have to be.  
  
On the sidewalk ahead, a guy in a red jacket trimmed in white and floppy Santa hat was shaking a can at people as they passed. "Spare some change for the lonely this Christmas?" he asked cheerily as Frank reached him.  
  
"No. Can you?" Frank snorted, intending to push past. Only the street was so crowded, Frank kind of got blocked in next to the guy. Frank glanced at him; from a frame of pretty, sooty colored lashes, gold flecked eyes glinted back. Frank blinked. He didn’t think Santas came in cute.  
  
The guy smiled. "Of course!" He chirruped.  
  
Frank stopped trying to squeeze between two elderly women who were loaded up with bags and packages, and turned to the Santa.  
  
The can made a light tinkling sound as Santa held it out to Frank. "Take as much as you need."  
  
Frank pulled back. The sidewalk was teeming with people cramming in last minute shopping. They slipped past Frank and the guy without so much as a second glance.  
  
"Um, I think I 'll be fine. Thanks anyway," Frank said, frowning. That Santa suit was pretty thin. Thinner than Frank’s denim jacket, anyway. "Jesus, aren't you cold?" Frank pulled the neck of his thin jacket closer.  
  
The guy laughed again. "I never feel the cold, Frank,” he said.  
  
“It’s like 90 below out here. What are you, wearing a fucking tee shirt? Here,” Frank unwound his scarf and held it out to him, it wasn’t much, but at least Frank had a jacket.  
  
He heard a kid in the crowd of shoppers start wailing, and then felt a short sharp jab to the shin. “Ow, what the fu-” Glancing down, Frank watched unable to move out of the way, as a small girl with a scrunched up face pulled back and kick him in the the shin again with all her might. “Son of a...”  
  
“Oh, jeez, sorry mister!” A woman, who could only be this kid’s harried looking mother, grabbed the little girl’s hand. “Ginny, you apologize!”  
  
“Don’t get rid of Santa!” the little girl yelled, and drew back her foot to punt Frank again. But before she could, her mom scooped her up.  
  
“Don’t what?!” Frank could not believe this was frikken happening. He turned back to the guy in the Santa suit who was still fucking grinning. _Fine_ , thought Frank, _last time I offer a cute guy a scarf._  
  
The mom shuffled a little ahead, hitching the kid up onto her hip. From over her shoulder the brat poked her tongue out at Frank. Frank poked his tongue out right back.  
  
“What the hell is this day?” Frank said, tipping back his head and blowing at the sky.  
  
Santa laughed. “You know that one good turn deserves another, right?” He quirked a grin out the corner of his mouth.  
  
Frank waved the guy off and started to turn away. But Santa called, “Here!" and tipped the collection can. Frank had to stick out his hands to catch the contents; a small pile of silver and gold coins filled Frank’s cupped hands.  
  
"What - don't!" Frank held his hands away from him, trying to shove the money back at him.  
  
A group of teenagers crowded around them, pushing between them, drowning out the sound of Santa’s laugh. Frank clutched his hands to his stomach, trying not to drop the guy’s coins all over the sidewalk. There was a gap in the crowd but when Frank looked up, ready to give the money back - force it on him if he had to - Santa was gone.  
  
"Oh for crying out - " He scanned the street, but he couldn't see past the shoppers and seasonal revellers; couldn't see the guy or his Santa hat anywhere.  
  
The coins glinted in his hands, warm against his palms, and they all looked freshly minted, glittering and bright under the light of the streetlamps.  
  
Some of them were odd shapes - little octagonal rounds with holes in the middle, round pointed triangles with grinning faces on them. He stuffed them into his pockets. "Next street collector I see is getting a whole lot of..." Frank fished one of the coins out of his pocket, "Mag Mell? Where the hell is that?” He made a little noise of disbelief. “Merry fuckin' Christmas," he said, stuffing the thing back in his pocket and making his way through the throngs of shoppers down into the subway towards home.  
  
It was raining when Frank left the subway, that wet, misty kind of rain that gets you wetter than you realise. Frank pulled up his collar and trudged through it. His shin was still aching, and his now wet jeans chafed on it a little. _Brat, sheesh!_  
  
When he finally got to his place he got a little jolt of joy at seeing the lights were on. Bob was home.  
  
But then he remembered about the job and the rent and the jolt turned icy in his gullet.  
  
Frank weighed up heading down the street to the Irish bar on the corner for a couple of hours verses facing Bob and telling him he’d lost another job.  
  
A neon four leaf clover flashed in the distance. Maybe they'd take Mag Mell coins? Couple of them had four leaf clovers on them. Frank looked back up at his apartment and sighed. _Fuck it,_ he thought, _better to face the music sober._ He stomped up the stoop into the lobby of his building.  
  
*  
  
Bob stood in the hall looking Frank up and down. He held out a hand for Frank's bag, shutting the door once Frank had shuffled inside. “You want a towel?” He asked, kicking the door shut behind him. “You look like a drowned rat.”  
  
“Nah,” Frank said, shaking his soggy hair at Bob instead. "Thanks, man," Frank said. Bob growled and pushed Frank’s head away from him.  
  
Normally Frank’d be half way up Bob’s back by now demanding a piggy back and popcorn. But he felt dousing the guy with melted snow was as much of a liberty with Bob Bryar’s personal space as he had the right to demand right now, since there wasn’t going to be any rent coming this week either.  
  
“Yeah, well. You gotta get a new job, but I won’t turn you out. Okay?”  
  
Frank stared. “How... how did you know.”  
  
Bob crossed his arms. “I can read you like a book, Iero,” he said and walked into the kitchen. “What else happened?”  
  
Frank sighed and pulled out one of the kitchen chairs to sit on backwards. “There was a cute Santa. Maybe I worked with him somewhere? Called me Frank, anyway. At least, I think he did.”  
  
Bob made encouraging sounds from the depths of the fridge, so Frank continued.  
  
Frank considered sticking something down the back of Bob’s pants while he was in this vulnerable and ripe for comedic hi-jinx position, but thought better of it. “So I offered him my scarf,” Frank said. “Coz he had on, like, just a red shirt, right. And the next thing I know Wednesday Adams appears out of nowhere, and tries to kick a hole in my shin. Starts screaming about me getting rid of Santa -”  
  
Bob’s stood up suddenly and nearly knocked himself out on the door roof of the fridge.  
  
“Ow, fuck. You did what to who?” Bob emerged from the fridge, rubbing the back of his head and holding a can of coke.  
  
“I didn’t do anything. So kid kicked me and accused me of getting rid of Santa, like I’m some kind of fairy hit man or some shit.”  
  
Bob scowled. “Well, that’s how you get rid of … um... them.”  
  
“Them?”  
  
Bob looked uncomfortable. “Magical people. Faeries. Whatever. You, you know, you give them clothes.”  
  
Frank snickered. “Okay, Harry Potter. But this wasn’t frikken house elves; this was a guy freezing his sack off in a Santa suit.” Bob wasn’t laughing back, though. He was rubbing his beard and frowning.  
  
“Rowling borrowed that from real life, Frank,” Bob said, fixing Frank with his craggy-browed stare. “From Fairytales. Like, it’s how you free them, or whatever, from your service.”  
  
Bob looked really uneasy now. He frowned. “You know the one about the poor cobbler?” He lent back against the counter. Frank shook his head, he’d never really been big on kids stories. He couldn’t really think of any off the top of his head.  
  
Bob sighed. “Once upon a time there’s this poor cobbler,” he said. “And he can’t make enough pairs of shoes to survive, but one day he comes into his workshop and it’s full of shoes, so he hides out to see who's making them, and he sees these little guys come in and make them; they work all night. And so the cobbler is super grateful and makes them some little shoes of their own and leaves them for them. Only the little guys, they freak out, and he never sees them again. He gets rid of them and then, he like dies of poverty of something else all medieval and crappy.”  
  
At the end of Bob’s speech Frank snaps shut his jaw. The entire year that he’s known Bob, he’s never heard him string that many words together in one go.  
  
“Um, okay?” Frank says. “I didn’t know you were like, the keeper of the lore or whatever.”  
  
Bob shakes himself, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, which Frank can’t help noticing had gone kind of red. “I’m not,” he sgrumbles. “Just shit my dad used to tell me. When I was a kid.”  
  
Bob turned back to the fridge and pulled out a leftover take out container. “You want some of this?” He says, not looking at Frank. “I’ll heat it for you, but I’m not cooking shit.”  
  
Frank reconsidered climbing on top of his only friend in the world. “You’re a star, Bob Bryar. A big soft, Irish star.”  
  
“Half Irish,” Bob corrected. “The other half is Kick-Your-Ass-If-You-Don’t-Pull-Your-Shi

t-Together, so... you know,” Bob shrugged.

“Santa didn’t want the fucking scarf anyway, so he’s safe. And that kid is a brat.”

Bob chuffed out a laugh. “So long as Santa is safe. All I’m worried about.”

Frank felt better being home already. “Is um, is your girlfriend here?” he asked, hovering around Bob’s shoulder as he put the food in the microwave and bashed the buttons.

Bob grunted, lifting his chin in the direction of the living room. “She’s looking forward to seeing you. You know, I think she’s into you man.”

Frank waggled his eyebrows. “I know dude. Good thing I don’t dig chicks, huh?”

“Yeah, fuckin’ yeah,” Bob said, cracking open a coke. “Whatever.”

Frank headed to the living room, opened the door and Bob’s girlfriend threw herself at him, leaping up and licking his face. “Peppers, you little minx!” Frank cried, dropping to his knee and letting the tea-cup Chihuahua smother him with her doggy kisses. “Did you miss me? Did you miss me baby?!”

Peppers danced around his feet yipping at him.

“I’m home, scruff muffin. We can sneak around behind daddy’s back,” he said, rolling her over so he could rub her tummy.

_Love Frank. Love Tummy. Love Frank and Tummy. Love Frank_

“Yeah, she really does love it. Look at her,” Frank called back at Bob.

Frank tickled up by Peppers’ ears and back to her tummy. “That’s my girl,” Frank sighed, running his fingers over her silky skin.

“She is a heart breaker.” Bob said, coming into the room and throwing himself on the couch. He dug an Xbox controller out from under him and resumed playing.

“She is a woman of discernment and taste,” Frank corrected, as Peppers licked his hand. “And she loves me.”

Bob snorted. “How can you tell,” he said, arching an eyebrow and restarting the game.

Pepper’s wriggled over and sat staring up at Frank her tail thumping.

_Love Frank. Frank mine. Love Frank. Love Frank. Love Frank._

Frank grinned at Bob and shrugged. “Look at that face. You can almost hear her speaking,” he said.

Bob rolled his eyes and handed Frank a second controller making a sound that may or may not have been a “Humph.”

*

The red haired man walked across the park to Frank’s bench and sat down next to him.

Behind him, the gleaming golden roof of the Library shimmered, it's arcane spires piercing the diamond studded sky. Dark as it was, Frank could see everything perfectly, as if each tree and blade of grass and, even the man next to him, was lit up from within. Frank should have been cold in just his t-shirt, out here in the park in the middle of the night, but the air was light and warm on his skin.

His new companion shivered. His features changed every time Frank looked away, and his skin seemed brazen, flowing from creamy white to vibrant pink and blue in places. Frank blinked and rubbed his eyes, but it didn’t make any difference. It was like he’d been drawn and smudged, Frank thought. The only clear thing about him was his hair, scarlet and shaggy and bright.

Frank focused on that colour. He immediately felt calmer and happier just looking at it. He wanted to put his fingers in it, like paint in a pot, and drag the color all over his skin.

“Hi,” the man said, shuffling a little closer to Frank; so close Frank could smell the warmth of his skin and hear the colour of his large eyes, golden and warm.

“Hello,” Frank said back. In his lap a brown paper bag crinkled. Frank took a handful of crumbs from the the little bag and scattered them on the path in front of the bench. Out of thin air, a flock of little - what were they? - Little _people_ , tiny people, with gossamer wings, descended on the crumbs. Frank turned to say something to his new companion, but the man seemed unsurprised, and unconcerned that they were being surrounded by - by _fairies_ or some shit.

“I miss you, Frankie,” the man said after a few moments of watching the little creatures squabble over the crumbs. He held out his finger and one of the fairies flitted through the air and alighted on the end of it. The red haired man stroked the little creature’s gossamer wing. Frank shivered.

“Miss me?” Frank asked, watching the man’s finger slip so gently over the wing.

The red haired man smiled. “I do.”

Frank missed the man. He desperately missed him. Which was strange to Frank because, he'd never seen him before in his life.

The little fairy flitted away. They both watched her disappear across the park towards the Library.

“Can you come home soon?” The man on the bench asked.

“Come home?” Frank said, looking down. The bag of crumbs had been replaced by the edge of a bed sheet, scrunched up in Frank’s tight fists. The ground beneath the bench started to shake. Frank grit his teeth. “Come home? I _am_ home.” Frank hissed.

The red haired man reached out, and ran the tip of one finger down Frank’s cheek. Frank's skin tingled and burned in its wake. “Are you sure?” The red haired man said.

The thunder under the bench became a roar, and Frank woke up, sitting in his bed and blinking at the room, trying to remember what he’d just been dreaming.

It was something terrible, he was sure. But also something warm and happy and - But it was no use. It was gone so fast that chasing it only pushed it further away.

Frank rolled over in bed and tried to get another half hour. Maybe the dream would come back.

*

When Frank had first met Bob they’d hit it off because it was like Bob was the only person who seemed to actually _see_ Frank when he was around.

This was at the Lobster restaurant, which, with hindsight, was probably the worst job Frank could have taken. Except that he'd met Bob, who spoke _to_ Frank, not just _at_ him. They’d bonded over a shared hatred for plunging living things into boiling water, and the head chef – a psycho who’d watched one too many British cooking shows and thought throwing sauce pans and four letter words around the kitchen was the way to get things done. Asshole.

Bob had quit that place not long after the Lobster Liberation incident (Frank still wasn't sorry). Now he worked at a bistro up town, but he’d offered Frank a place to stay when he didn’t have a bum dime to his name. He was the closest thing Frank had to a best friend in the whole of Chicago.

As compensation for having to put up with Frank, Frank had taken to getting up a few hours before Bob, or sneaking out after he’d gone to bed and cleaning the house from top to bottom. He’d make sure Bob’s breakfast was ready before he got up, maybe put some clean chef’s whites out for him, get the papers in off the porch and generally make sure all Bob had to do round the house was play Call of Duty and walk Peppers every now and then – when Frank wasn’t doing it. Man, Frank loved that dog.

Taking care of Bob seemed like the least he could do, under the circumstances.

Bob never mentioned it. He just left Frank to his own devices and Frank felt pretty good about that. As soon as he got some lasting work, Frank’d pay Bob the rent he owed or something, and then they could divvie up the housework or whatever.

Frank’d still be number one dog walker, though. That was a deal breaker.

He sliced an apple into a bowl and squeezed a little lemon on it and sprinkled it with cinnamon and sugar. He placed it next to Bob’s cereal bowl, then set the coffee machine going.

The kitchen was spotless, the living room was tidy and Bob’s laundry was folded, waiting for him on the bottom stair. Frank sighed, if only things went this easily in the work place. He looked down at Peppers sitting by his feet.

“Good morning, scruffmuffin,” he said. Peppers thumped her tail as Frank crouched down and scruffed her behind the ears. “I bet you want a W-A-L-K? I'm sorry, baby girl. I promise you a W-A-L-K when I get home tonight, okay? I have to find a job, kid." Frank stood and stretched. Peppers little tail thumped on the floor, and Frank grinned down at her. "I hid a chewchew in Bob’s bed. Go find it!”

Peppers scrabbled off towards Bob’s bedroom. Frank grabbed his jacket, keys and messenger bag. By the front door he paused, waiting for it.

“Peppers! Garrrgh! Too. Early!” A yell bellowed from the depths of the apartment and Bob’s bed.

Giggling, Frank locked the door behind him and headed out to find some work.

*

“Sorry kid,” the manager said. “I’m looking for someone with experience.”

“That’s funny,” Frank said. “The last place I tried said I was over qualified.”

The manager cold-eyed Frank.

“Yeah. Thanks for your time,” Frank said, hitching up his bag and turning to leave.

Well, that was it. The last place on his list. This town was officially dead to him.

An hour of aimless wandering later, Frank threw himself down on the park bench. He didn't have anywhere to go now. He'd trawled every street Downtown, asked in every two-bit diner, restaurant and café from South Side to Hillside and he was done. No one wanted Frank Iero in their kitchen.

He worried at a flaking piece of paint on the bench, digging his nail under the chip and prizing it off. He didn't want to go back to Bob’s place without some kind of news for him about work.

He shivered. What the hell was he doing sitting out in the freezing cold. He hadn't even noticed how cold it was as he’d been walking across town.

The late afternoon sun, low in the grey sky, glinted off the roof of the Chicago City Library.

Maybe Frank could go hide there for a couple of hours? He could lose himself in the books; he liked doing that anyway, usually. Plus, the city library had a big community notice board in the lobby. Maybe he'd find some work ads there.

Frank really loved that building; It had turrets, for crying out loud, and fierce-winged gargoyles plucked straight from Grimm’s Fairytales, Frank had always thought, hanging menacingly from the parapets. The doors were three times as tall as Frank, made from solid beams of wood, dotted with palm sized iron studs.

The frikken thing was a fortress of knowledge - straight out of a Dungeon Master's wet dream. Frank was fucking nuts about that place.

Today it looked like something out of a story book, with the glowering skies reflected in the tall, arched windows.

A flock of pigeons strutted and pecked across the entrance. He was never sure why, but something about pigeons always made Frank laugh.

Frank ran up the steps, scattering the flock as he went. It was as though he could hear their voices in the resulting cacophony of caws saying, _Oh my god! What is it?! Flee! Flee!!_

Grinning to himself as he pushed through the doors, Frank shrugged off his jacket and stuffed it into his backpack. He went straight for the notice board behind the information desk and stood scanning it for a few minutes.

It was warm and dry and quiet, inside. And, even though there were no help wanted ads, Frank was fucking glad he'd come here.

He walked along the shelves counting the numbers painted up high on little wooden 'flags'. 396-396.8, 397-397.9, 398-398.8. Frank turned aimlessly into the canyon of books and strolled down it, eyes scanning the shelves.

" _Modern Folklore_ ," he mumbled as he passed. " _The Folk Meagerie. Under the Hill. The Magic of Mag Mell_..." Frank stopped. _Mag Mell. Huh._

He pulled the book off the shelf and then jumped about a foot in the air because behind it was a wide grinning face.

"Hi!” the face said, all teeth and glinting eyes.

"Jesus fuck!" Frank hissed pressing the book to his chest.

The face disappeared, and seconds later short guy, still grinning, popped round the end of the aisle. "Sorry," he said, holding out his hand. "I didn't mean to frighten you... no, strike that, reverse it. Anyway, hi!"

Frank blinked down at the guy's open palm, and because he didn't know what else to do he reached out and shook it.

"Hi?"

The guy jiggled up and down on his toes a little. “Look I'm not a weirdo or anything... no, strike that," he said. "Reverse it. I am kind of a weirdo. But my point is, I couldn't help noticing you.”

Frank winced. Wow, he'd never thought of the public library as a place to pick up guys.

"Um, okay. Well, I'm flattered and all but -"

The guy just laughed. "No, no, you misunderstand." The guy’s smile widened. "You looked so... I dunno? Lost, maybe? I hate seeing people looking like that. I collect lost people, see," he shrugged. "It's like, my _thing_.”

Frank blinked. “Um, okay?”

The guy nodded. “I’m Pete, and I’m about to go outside in this glorious sunshine and eat this glorious sandwich,” he said, holding up something far too large to be a _sandwich_ all wrapped up in brown paper. “Wanna join me?”

"Well, um, nice as that sounds," Frank said, taking a surreptitious step backwards. Bob always said it was dickish how shy Frank could be around New People.

_Do not get a job in Hospitality if you don’t like new people, dick head. Hospo is_ all _new people,_ Bob liked to say. Frank thought that was fair enough in a work situation, but out in the everyday? Like, in a frikken library? Frank didn’t think it was his responsibility to de-shy himself or whatever for the library freaks.

"I'm not really hungry and - " Frank's stomach had other ideas about his shyness though, and growled loudly. He winced.

Pete smiled wider at the sound. "It's vegan," he said, shaking the bag a little. "C'mon. I can't eat it all myself. Tell you what, if it makes you feel better we can trade. My sandwich for a story."

Frank couldn’t help smiling. "You want me to, like, hang on... what?"

Pete put his hands on his hips, lent back and laughed. It wasn’t a big laugh, but he gave it his all, and Frank half felt the laugh bubble up in him too. He giggled. Okay, so, maybe he kind of liked this crazy asshole.

"You tell me a story - your story,” Pete said. “I give you a sandwich. Like, like tale busking!" Pete's eyes went a little distant. "Hmmm, that's a cool idea." He snapped back to Frank and grinned again. "I thought it up, okay, but you can use it if you want."

Frank shook his head. He had absolutely no fucking idea what the hell was going on. But he was starving suddenly, and smiling after what had been a pretty shitty day. Okay, so the guy was a whacko, but Frank was down with whackos.

"Okay, a sandwich for a story?" He asked.

"Your story," Pete said, nodding. "And don't try to trick me. I'll know if you do. We can smell our own." He winked and Frank found himself giggling again.

"Okay. C'mon then,” Frank said. “But I hate to break it to you, it's pretty crummy outside. It was just starting to, like, piss down when I got here."

They walked across the lobby and through the doors.

"You sure?" Pete said, and those words made Frank’s skin tingle. Hadn’t someone else just ask him that? He shook his head to clear it. Whatever it was, it was gone now.

They stepped outside, and Frank blinked. "Huh," he said. The sun was shining and the sky was bright blue.

*

"Okay, I've got, like... what the hell is that? Artichoke? Roast pumpkin and peanut butter. Or Carrot, spinach and grape jelly,” Pete said, prising up the corner of a sandwich before holding them both out to Frank to pick. “What's your poison."

The sandwiches were massive. And weird. Big slabs of seed filled, nutty scented bread piled high with the strangest shit Frank had ever heard of. Like, who put roast pumpkin in a fucking sandwich?

"Carrot and what the hell else, I guess," Frank said. Pete handed him half a slab, picked one up for himself and stuffed it in his mouth.

"Mokay, my smorry mees," said Pete, spraying seeds and bits of pumpkin everywhere.

Frank leaned out of the line of fire.

"Whoops. The story, c'mon," Pete said, swallowing his mouthful.

Frank took a tentative bite of the artichoke, grape jelly and peanut butter thing. The flavours burst over his tongue in new and starling combinations. _Holy fuck_ , he thought and fell on the rest of it like he hadn't eaten in years. "This should not work as a food combination, but..." He stuffed another huge bite into his mouth. “Mit mo buzz.”

"I know right? Zachary makes them, over at Pan's. It's like he's fuckin' magic or something," Pete grinned.

Frank nodded fervently. "Wow," he said, only his mouth is disgustingly full so it came out as more of a 'mow', with crumbs flying everywhere.

Pete flipped his hand in the air. "Okay, you've eaten my bread and salt, payment is due.”

Frank frowned and dug around in his back teeth, plucking out stuck seeds. "Okay, okay. So, um, I came to Chicago a year ago, well, like almost a year..."

Frank started and after a second found he couldn't stop, he told Pete about Bob and Peppers and how Chicago felt like home, almost but not quite. And he told him how, even though it was fucking hard, he couldn't go home yet, not until he'd made it here. Not until he'd tried.

Pete nodded, and asked questions and finally, when Frank had run out of things to say, Pete said, “So, like, tell me one thing you’ve done since coming to Chicago that you’re really proud of.”

The question threw Frank a little. He scrambled around for something, anything he’d done in the last year that he could honestly say he was proud of. But there wasn’t a lot. Fuck, that was kind of embarrassing. ‘I haven’t held down a job for more than a couple of months’ wasn’t anything to write home about, nor was ‘Failed to ever pay my rent on time’.

“Ah, this one time,” Frank said, picking at the peeling paint on the park bench. “I like, freed a bunch of lobsters.”

“Dude,” Pete said. “You just got through telling me that was an accident. C’mon, we can smell our own.”

“Fine,” Frank said, throwing up both hands. “There’s, like, nothing. I’ve done nothing I’m proud of. Okay?” Frank tore the corner of the sandwich wrapper on the bench between them.

“Again, I’m calling bullshit,” Pete said and crossed his arms. “What about Peppers? Didn’t you say something about her?”

Frank scratched his chin and screwed up his nose. “What about her? A Chihuahua likes me. I’m not sure if you know this about dogs, but like, they love anyone with a bag of kibble and chew chew.”

“Yeah, but you were telling me something about Peppers,” Pete said again, and swirled his hands round, trying to grab for the thread of that particular story. “Like, something you did for her?”

Frank thought about Bob’s little golden tea cup Chuchu. He really did love the fuck out of that - _Oh, wait…_

Frank straightened up. “This one time, I got home to Bob’s and Peppers was acting kind of weird,” he said. “And like, when I picked her up she stank real bad. Bob wasn’t around, he’d been working nights… Anyway, I took her to the vet then and there, coz the smell was so bad, and like, her ears were all fucked up inside. And the vet said she had an infection, a really bad one.”

Pete grinned. “You _saved_ her.”

“I guess,” Frank said. And yeah, yeah, he’d saved Peppers. Saved her little, star-bright life. He swallowed down a lump that had popped up in his throat out of nowhere.

Pete’s eyebrows shot up. “And you’ve done nothing to be proud of?”

Frank laughed. “Point.”

Pete grinned. “Peppers is awesome,” he said. “I mean, she sounds awesome.”

“She is. She so is.” Frank grinned.

"Where's home for you, Frankie?" Pete asked, picking at his teeth with a finger nail. "Like, where did you come from?"

"Oh, you know... East," said Frank. He frowned. "Um, Jersey, I think."

Pete's lips twitched. "East?"

"Sure," said Frank. "But anyway, I'm here now and that's what matters, right? It's not where you're fuckin' from, but where you're at."

Pete shrugged. “The past is important too.”

Frank wasn’t so sure about that. He nodded anyway, though. "Jersey might be in my future too, anyway, 'cause I can't get a goddamn job to save my life.” Frank said, and popped the crust of the doorstopper in his mouth. “And, that’s the end of my story... and this sandwich."

It was kind of a bum note to end his tale on, but it was true. And he had the feeling Pete cared more about that than anything else.

Pete nodded and dusted off his hands. "What do you do? What's like your thing?" Pete asked. “What are you looking for, job-wise?”

Frank shrugged. "Kitchen hand," he said. "Food Prep. I’ll wait tables. I can make coffee at a push, but I'm not much good with the milk -"

Pete slammed his hands together and yelped.

Frank jumped almost out of his skin again. ""Fuck me! What?!"

"That is why I met you today!” Pete leaped up from the bench. “A job!"

Frank took a deep breath and blew it out. "You know where there's some work going?"

Pete nodded. "Frankie do you believe in fate?" Opening his arms wide and leaning back, he said, "Like really, really believe? Because if you don't believe, this might not be real."

Frank could feel his eyebrows inching up his forehead. Pete really was kind of a weirdo.

"Um, okay? I guess I believe then, if there's a job in it for me," Frank said.

Pete frowned. “Well, that'll have to do." He took a deep breath and thrust his fingers into his hair, messing it up insanely. He looked Frank in the eye. "The sandwich you just ate," he said, leaning forward. "And which, unless my eyes and ears deceived me, you enjoyed the fuck out of, was from _Pan’s_ , which even as we speak is in _dire need of a kitchen hand_!”

Frank's stomach flipped and a little tingle of excited hope danced through him. He got a hold of it real quick though, and pushed it down. Just 'cause this Pan's place needed someone didn't mean they'd need _Frank_.

"Point me at it, " Frank said. "I can only go see what they're looking for, right?"

"Right!" Pete replied, tearing off a wide strip of brown paper from their lunch and pulling the stub of a pencil from his pocket. He started sketching a rickety looking map on the paper. "Take the El to Oak Park," he said after a few more sketchy lines. "Second street on the left, and straight on till Mornington Cresent. Tell them Pete sent you." He looked up. "No, strike that. Reverse it. Whatever you do, do not mention me. The last guy I sent over there set the place on fire.” He grinned his mighty grin.

"Pete," Frank said, staring at the map. On the corner of the paper the word _Pan's_ was stamped in a large swirling font with little stars and moons floating on the page around it. "I-I don't know what to say."

"Say, 'Thanks Pete!' and then go get that job."

Frank smiled and tucked the map into his inner jacket pocket. "Thanks, Pete," Frank said.

And Pete smiled back, huge and bright.

*

Frank hopped the first El he could and made his way, with Pete’s somewhat shonky directions still fresh in his mind, to Mornington Cresent. The map took him down a couple of strange little alleyways to a road Frank was pretty sure he’d never seen before - a leafy little avenue with quaint little shops dotted along it.

He walked the length of the street looking for Pan’s, but at the end there was only a narrow little pedestrian thoroughfare next to a second-hand book store.

Frank scanned the street. There was a tall old fashioned looking lampost by the entrance of the thoroughfare, and sitting under it was a little, dark brown pug. It stared at Frank. Frank stared back at it.

"Don't suppose you know how to find a place called Pan's?" He said, and couldn’t help laughing at himself. Reduced to talking to animals. Whatever the fuck next?

_You're looking at it._

“Yeah, didn’t think so,” Frank muttered to himself. He turned back to the alley anyway, and walked a little further own it. There, half way down was a glittering silver dollar sequin sign. He walked closer to it. The sign said, PAN’S.

"How the hell did I miss that?" Frank. scratched his head.

_Beats me_.

The pug trotted past Frank towards the café and in through the big green door under the sign. Frank followed.

*

Frank wasn’t sure what to expect - the sign outside was kind of crazy and bling, but the green door was pretty weathered and in need of a fresh coat of paint. Pan’s was a good name for a café though, Frank figured; he hoped he’d be cleaning theirs soon enough.

But as he pushed open the big green door, Frank realised Pan’s was actually probably short for _Pandemonium_.

Every table was full, and between them rushed efficient looking waiters carrying huge trays of food and drink. The decor was pretty loud too; red and green and orange walls covered in art, with massive exposed beams of gnarled wood and wide knotty floor planks, pitted with use. At one end of the room was an open fireplace, as tall as Frank himself, stacked with logs and roaring with fire.

The tables were long, with high backed chairs, and three legged stools arranged higglydee piggledee around them. In front of the fire were wing backed settees, and on a rug by the hearth was the little black pug.

In fact, there were animals everywhere. Cats wound around chair legs; dogs dozed under tables; mice scurried over the table tops; turtles napped under the cake stands, and birds perched on shoulders. He saw rats scurrying up sleeves, which was super alarming in a café, but no one else seemed to give a rats ass. There was something a little bit Diagon Alley-like about the place. JK Rowling would shit.

Every table seemed full. Only, these weren't the usual patrons of the cafés Frank worked in. There were no yummy mommies with children at their knees, no writers tapping at their lap tops. There was a guy over there with a beard to his waist sitting with a woman with waves tattooed all over her arms, and a boy with what looked like implants on his forehead, almost like horns.

There were piercings and ink and all manner of body modification as far as the eye could see, and crazy-assed clothes too. Frank smiled. _Ink._ The chances of Frank getting work here had, he felt, just doubled.

"Take a seat," a guy said, brushing past Frank bearing a tray loaded with steaming mugs and teapots and plates frothing with creamy cakes, held high above his head. "I'll be with you in a minute."

"Um," said Frank, unable to take his eyes off the woman sitting at the table in front of him who appeared to have an entire stuffed peacock sitting on her head, Frank assumed, by way of a hat. The peacock turned and blinked at him.

_Okay,_ thought Frank. _Not stuffed then._

“Um,” he said again. Only the waiter was long gone, weaving in and out of the tables on the far side of the diner. Frank looked around, but there didn't seem to be a spare seat anywhere.

Was this some kind of pet convention? Yeah, that was it. They were weird pet owning rockabilly cosplayers or something.

"There's a table at the back," the waiter said, flitting past again, this time with a cloth in one hand and two empty tankards in the other.

"No, I um -" Frank stammered. The guy stopped and looked Frank up and down. A smile lit up his face.

"Tell me you're here about the job!" He crowed.

"Man, I am so here about the job," Frank said.

"Oh my god!" The waiter launched himself at Frank grabbing one arm and dragging him between the tables. Looking back at him over his shoulder he said, "You are going to _love_ it here!”

"Don't you want to see my references?" Frank stumbled a little.

The waiter shot Frank a grin and a wink. "Nah," he said, flapping his cloth. "Follow me. I'm Brandon, by the way." He stepped over what appeared to be an Irish Wolf Hound, lying between the tables. "Watch out for Hamish," Brandon said, glancing down. "He forgets this is a place of work."

Frank stepped over the dog, which ignored him completely. "Um, is that - is that legal?"

Brandon shrugged. "They're regulars. You know how it is. We're pretty familiar with them," he said waggling his eyebrows. When Frank didn’t reply, Brandon stopped, turned to Frank and looked him up and down. “Oh!” He said and shook his head.

"What?" Frank asked. God, he would die if the guy suddenly decided he _didn’t_ want Frank after all.

“Nothing,” Brandon said, quirking a smile. “Just, I thought - you know what? Never mind.” He grinned, an impish kind of grin and lit up his whole face. “The hours are seven to three, five days a week, days shift around a bit, but we're all really flexible. Gee gets to choose his days since he's an oldest, but yeah, we can accommodate you! The pay is pretty shitty, but you get two meals and all your own tips. And baby, this lot tip big.”

Frank didn't know what was going on, but apparently he'd just gotten a job, so he felt pretty strongly that shutting the fuck up and going with it was the order of the day. Following his instincts in the face of Pete's crazy had served him well, after all.

Brandon turned and started leading him through the café again. Frank was so distracted by what appeared to be a ring tailed lemur swinging from a light fitting that he didn’t see Brandon stop, and ploughed straight into the back of him. “Fuck, sorry man -”

But Brandon hadn’t noticed. He was watching a table of weird looking old guys. “Dude, dude,” he hissed, drawing Frank close. "Watch this!"

The old guys sat down and as the oldest and most craggy looking one sat, there was and almighty and unmistakable _FARRRRRRP!_

The room went completely silent for a second or two and then erupted in hysterical laughter as the shocked, hairy old dude shot out of the chair. He turned and scrabbled under the seat retrieving an actual _whoopee cushion_ , the kind of thing Frank hadn't seen since, well, he hadn't seen one in years and years.

The old man grumbled and muttered, slapping the cushion on the table before sitting, gingerly, down again.

Brandon slapped his stomach and nudged Frank's shoulder. "One of the classics! Priceless!"

Frank couldn't help grinning, but mostly it was in confusion. He’d once been fired for pranking a regular on April Fool’s Day by pretending to get his order all wrong. What the hell kind of café was this?

“C’mon,” Brandon said and tugged Frank's sleeve. He herded him towards a pair of high doors, with clear round windows in them. "The Kitchens are through here.” He pushed Frank through the doors ahead of him.

If Frank had thought the hubub of the café was intense, it hadn't prepared him for the mania of the kitchens.

Steam billowed into his face as he passed through the doors and he had to duck as a red pepper sailed past into the outstretched hand of a tall hatted chef, who began slicing it with lightening dexterity.

There were three large central tables around which five or six chefs moved in synch, like some kind of weird, stilted dance. Along two walls, flaming grills and stoves and ovens gently roared, while opposite them banks of glass fronted fridges and silver freezers loomed. In one corner Frank saw an open door which seemed to lead to a store room so chocka-block with boxes and sacks of flour the door wouldn’t close.

The clamour of pans and pots was undercut by the sounds of sizzling and steaming and bubbling, and the shouts of the chefs calling to each other in what sounded, Frank had always thought, like their own language. “Baist,” Frank heard. “Broil! Sautee! Grilladin!”

Food and utensils flew threw the air as they were required, and waiters sailed in and out of the two sets of doors, their trays piled high with orders.

But it was the smell, as always, that called to Frank. Rich, vibrant aromas and warm, mellow, hearty smells. Fresh fish, spices, blood, crisp greenery, apples and berries, reductions and sauces, the warm soul-scent of chocolate.

Frank's skin itched. He realized his fists were clenched tight against grabbing up the teetering stack of dishes or pouncing on a mound of unpeeled spuds. He felt fidgety and awkward in a way he ached to shake off. There was stuff that needed doing and Frank knew how to do all of it.

"Can I? Do you need..." He turned to Brandon and flapped a hand at the potatoes.

"Huh?” Brandon said, seeing Frank staring at the piles of unchopped veggies. "Oh! You want to start right now? That's what I like to hear! But no, it's okay. Tomorrow would be good though. I just want to introduce you to a few key players first.”

Frank sighed.

A tall, imposing looking guy in a starched white jacket and tall chef’s hat came storming out of the storeroom waving a ladle. "Where's my rou?!" He shouted. "There can and shall be rou! Where in the name of Pan is it?!"

"Ray?" Brandon called, and waved the chef over.

"Brandon,” Ray said, pointing the ladle at him. “I swear on my mother’s horns, that guy is worse than the numbskull you hired last week. No more Norms. You understand?

"Ha ha!" said Brandon, his eyes cutting to Frank quickly as he made what Frank assumed he thought was a subtle, cut throat gesture at Ray. "Let me introduce you to our _new guy_." He turned a bright, if slightly forced smile on Frank.

Ray blinked. He looked Frank up and down, and gave Brendon a bemused look. "But -"

"Just in off the street looking for a job!" Brendon cut Ray off. Frank raised his eyebrows at Ray.

"Um... Hi!" Ray said, brightly, his former ire all but forgotten. "I'm Ray, the head chef!"

Frank hitched his bag higher on his shoulder and held out his hand. "Frank, um... the new pot guy." He said and looked to Brendon who nodded.

"Oh, hell no," Ray replied, and Frank felt his stomach plummet. _Well, that didn't take long._ Frank had known it was too good to be true. Ray shook his head again. "No, you? You, I need on prep."

Frank blinked. "Well, thank you anyway... wait, what?" Frank looked between the two men. Brandon raised an eyebrow and smiled.

Ray nodded and pointed his ladle at Frank. "You have chef's hands," he said. "I'm not wasting them."

Ray’s attention was grabbed by something happening over Frank’s shoulder suddenly and he narrowed his eyes. "Hey! Bert, what the hell are you... I'm sorry Frankie,” he said looking back at Frank. "I gotta," he waved the ladle in Bert’s direction. "See you tomorrow at 7am sharp."

Frank sketched a salute, and Ray hared off across the kitchen. He turned back to Brandon to see he’d been joined by three other chefs.

"And this is Keenan," said Brandon, flipping out both hands presentation style towards a tall, broad shouldered guy in chef's whites with what looked like hand-painted flames rolling up the sleeves. “Our Friturier.”

The tall chef pointed a meat cleaver at Frank. "You chop it, Eyebrows," he said, with a midwest drawl. "I'll fry that mother till it can't speak." He winked and then chopped _something_ into tiny pieces, threw them in a bowl and tossed them in the air with what seemed to be... sparkly flour? He waggled his eyebrows at Frank. "Seven secret herbs and spices, little brother. Y'get me? Come on."

Two chefs next to him high fived and whooped. "Tell it like it is Keenan!"

"And," said Brandon with a sigh. "These are my brothers, Adam." The smaller of the two, with a bright smile, saluted Frank. "And Zach." Zach tipped his head back and smirked at Frank.

"S'up!" Frank said brightly, shaking the hands they held out for him.

Frank bounced on his toes in a rush of glee. These were _his_ kind of people, in _his_ kind of kitchen - covered in ink, with what looked like band shirts on under their whites, and one of them, Adam was his name? He was wearing brothel creepers - in a fucking _kitchen_. He giggled and turned to Brandon. “Thank you,” he said. This - This is awesome.”

"I know right?" Brandon said, smiling back and clapping Frank on the shoulder.

Brandon tugged Frank's sleeve and lead him back towards the café doors. Frank didn't want to go though. There was still so much to see, he was sure.

“I mean, I can actually start now if you want,” he said. “I mean. I’m free, right now. Totally free. All yours. If you want. Are you sure you don’t want me to like, I don’t know, do stuff with potatoes? Because I can, I can do things with potatoes. And like those potatoes are not gonna peel themselves. Right?” Frank babbled and pushed open the double doors...

And completely failed to see the waiter with a tray full of dirty dishes blocking his way.

The rim of the tray connected with his shoulder, tipping it sideways in almost cartoonish slo-motion and a stack of dainty little tea cups teetered and toppled over the edge of the tray.

Frank lunged for them; The first cup landed in his outstretched palm, upside down and a luke warm slosh of tea flooded up his arm. A second one landed on top of it, and a third and a fourth, the last one balancing on the edge of it's fluted foot, before toppling on top of the stack.

Frank kicked out a foot tand the cup landed with a tiny thud on the top of Frank's Converse, wobbled slightly and was still. Frank let out a whoosh of breath.

There was a clatter of plates and Frank looked up to see the waiter had caught almost everything else on the tray. Everything except a half-full cream boat which teetered on the lip of the tray.

A splodge of whipped cream tipped over the edge of the boat, splattering to the ground. The little creamer, unbalanced completely, tipped with it and plumetted to the floor..

Without thinking Frank kicked the tea cup on his shoe up in the air, caught it in his left hand, and leaped forward to catch the creamer too. Only he misjudged the distance; his foot landed in the splodge of cream and Frank started to skid.

"Oh shitballs," the waiter said, and Frank ploughed into him at top speed, sending all the cups, saucers, plates and delicate china creamers flying again. His momentum carried them back though the kitchen doors into the café, and straight over the back of a chair onto one of the - thankfully empty - tables.

There was an almighty crash behind them, followed by a plaintive little tinkle.

Then everything went silent.

Frank prised his eyes open and looked up. Forty pairs of café customer eyes stared back. Hamish the Wolfhound's head popped up between the tables. He barked.

"Um," a voice from under Frank said.

Frank looked down. Pretty, sooty colored lashes and gold flecked eyes looked back at him. _Cute Santa_ was staring up at Frank with a smirk and a raised eyebrow.

"Welcome to Pan's,” the guy said slyly. “Rough and ready dining is our specialty. See anything you like?"

*

Gerard, that was his name, but everyone called him Gee. He was the head waiter, and sometimes he played Santa for charity, and everyone loved him. These were the things Frank found out as deftly as he could the next morning when he began work.

He was Brandon's mentor, kind of, or so Brandon kept saying while looking all starry eyed. Frank figured maybe Gerard had that effect on everyone.

Frank cringed. Just thinking of the way his body had been pressed to Gerard’s made his cheeks get hot. It was about the most action Frank had seen in a year, maybe longer, and it was never to be repeated. Because Frank was never going to talk to or look at Gerard again, if he could possibly help it.

He honestly thought he’d lost the job before he’d even started, which would have been a record, even for him. But Brandon seemed to think it was the best thing he’d ever seen in his life, and even Ray, who was kind of an intimidating hard ass, had been laughing as he swept up some of the broken china.

No one had seemed pissed at him at all. Even Gerard, whom Frank had accidentally dry humped practically - _sweet withering Christ_ \- had waved off his apology with a flick of his slender wrist and a bat of his insanely long eyelashes.

Frank was kind of fucked.

“Seriously Brandon, I want to pay for the breakages,” Frank said, standing in the storeroom with his hands on his hips as Brandon searched through boxes.

“Okay, you can like...” Brandon stood up and looked around the storeroom, before running a dusty hand through his hair and grinning at Frank. “I’ll tell you what. You can straighten this place up, and we’ll call it even. Actually, the storeroom can officially be your domain, or whatever.” He gave Frank a level look. “It’s a pretty full on job keeping this place in order. We haven’t had someone who could do it for a year and a day, at least. Think you’re up to it? “

Frank stood back and surveyed the state of the storeroom. The shelves were all crammed with spices and jars and cans in no particular order. Boxes of every size were stacked precariously all the way to the roof, and more lay up-ended or spilling their contents over the floor. There were piles everywhere, stacks of paper and, well, crap, basically, on every surface. Frank’s hands itched.

He grinned. “Thanks, man,” he said. Brandon dived back into the boxes.

He emerged a few minutes later waving some kind of golden flag. “Okay! Here it is!” He handed the flag to Frank. “This one is for you.”

“Um,” said Frank, holding up the flashy scrap of fabric as Brandon handed it to him. “A golden, um, thing? For dishwashing duty?”

“Yep,” Brandon smacked his hands together, dusting them off. “Pan said he didn’t want people doing the more mundane jobs to get blue, and lamé always cheers him up so...” Brandon waved a hand up and down.

“Ri-ight,” said Frank, slipping the neck band over his head. He looked up at Brandon. “And the ostrich feather accented elbow length washing up gloves are for...?"

Brandon turned away and shrugged. "Just coz."

Frank shook his head. _Okay._

When he’d arrived that morning Brandon had gleefully informed him that, despite Ray’s insistence he start in prep, Frank should really learn all the jobs, starting at the bottom, so they were putting him on dish duty.

Ray didn’t start until three and maybe Frank could get on the prep table after that. But until then, suds up.

Frank didn’t mind. He was just happy to be working. And now he had a _domain_ too. A thing that was just his to do. And looking round the room, he could see how much they needed him.

"So, when do I get to meet this guy?” Frank asked, snapping on the long washing up gloves.

“Who?” Brandon said, turning back to Frank and tugging on a crease in the lamé apron and smoothing it out.

“Pan,” Frank said. He reached behind himself to tie the apron on.

“Oh, you know. He’ll be around. Eventually.”

Frank was getting a picture of the guy, kind of frivolous, and maybe a little neglectful. Maybe the café was more of a vanity thing than a real passion. Maybe he just liked seeing his name up in glittery sequins when he brought his buddies over to show off. Frank had worked in places like that before. Kind of made things easier, the boss not being around much.

“Okay, so, how do I look?” Frank held his arms out. Brendon stood back and looked Frank over. He lifted a finger and twirled it. Frank rolled his eyes, but spun on his heel anyway.

“Fabbo!” Brandon said, clapping. “Now, lets go scrub some pots!”

*

If it wasn’t Keenan’s booming voice demanding a clean saucier within the next ten seconds, it was Brandon asking him to taste some bouillabaisse he thought might be too fishy (it was chili sauce), or Zach trying to send him out from some fallopian tubes (“You know? For icing?”) . Clearly, some of the guys in the kitchen felt Frank had come down in the last shower. But man, the work was good. He hardly noticed the time ticking by until an angular looking guy with faintly fogged up glasses sidled up to him and said, “Brandon said I should tell you to take you break with me.”

“Um, okay?” Frank said, pulled his hands out of the water, and stripping off the gloves.

“So, you should take you break now,” the guy said, pushing his misted up glasses up his nose. “Like, with me.”

“Well, who am I to turn down and invitation like that?” Frank said, and followed the guy into the café.

They found a spot in one of the alcove tables, tucked as far away from the customers – man, was this place _ever_ quiet? – as they could get.

“Hey,” Frank said sliding into the booth opposite the guy.

“Hey,” said the guy, and he reached over and plucked up a menu, opening it in front of his face.

_Right_ , thought Frank. He hadn’t seen the guy in the kitchens, and if Brandon was telling him what to do he was probably a waiter, so, like, he probably knew the menu by heart. And yet he was still staring at it like he needed a place to look. Frank felt a little awkward.

“So, you been working here long?” Frank tried.

“Mmhmm,” the guy said.

“It’s pretty great,” Frank sallied forth again.

The guy shrugged and turned the page.

Frank set his jaw. “I just jacked off in the storeroom,” he said lightly. “Later I’d like to shave Ray’s hair off and make it into soup.” ‘Bitches get slapped’ was one of Frank’s personal life mottos. Bob had taught him it.

“No, you didn’t,” Angular Guy said, looking up and narrowing his eyes at Frank. “And no, you don’t.” he sat forward in the seat and pinned Frank with a stare. “Do you know who I am?”

Shit. Frank swallowed. “Please tell me you’re not Pan.”

The angular guy blinked, the merest hint of a frown creasing his brow. He sat back in his seat.

Frank went cold and hot all at once. _God,_ he just told his boss he’d jacked off in the storeroom and wanted to shave his head chef. Way to go, jerkwad!

“I’m not Pan,” the guy said with a deep sigh, pushing the tips of his fingers up under his glasses and into his eyes. “I just thought...”

Frank blew out a breath. “Well, you know I’m fucking new, right?” he said, poking at the menu on the table between them. “How the fuck should I know who you are?”

Angular Guy shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “I wasn’t trying to be a tool. I just thought -” He stopped and looked Frank in the eye for a couple of seconds longer than was comfortable. Frank looked away.

“Yeah,” the guy said. “Never mind.” He took a deep breath. “Let's start over, okay? I’m - I’m Mikey, I’m a waiter here.”

“And my brother,” a voice chimed from next to their table.

Frank cringed. _Gerard._ God, Frank hadn’t been near him since yesterday’s catastrophe, except for a few times when he’d dropped dishes at Frank’s station, but Frank had hidden among the bubbles and pretended not see him.

Mikey rolled his eyes. “Hey Gee.”

“Hey Mikey,” Gerard said, although his eyes were on Frank, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Lunch?”

"The usual please," Mikey said, popping the menu back in the holder.

"And what would our resident acrobat like?" Gerard, said, raising an eyebrow at Frank. Frank’s mouth went quite dry.

Mikey kissed his teeth. "Can't you tell?" He asked.

Gerard turned to Mikey and gave him a tight smile. Frank git the feeling there was an old conversation going on and he’d just blundered into the middle of it. Maybe they were in the middle of some kind of sibling fight? Siblings did that, right? Frank had no idea.

He looked between the brothers, he could see a kind of resemblance, but Gerard was round where Mikey was all flat planes. Although they had the same gold flecked eyes and aquiline nose. Their lips matched too, and Frank really should not be staring at the guy’s lips, _for the love of God_.

"It's like his thing," Mikey said, still playing ‘who’ll blink first?’ with Gerard. "He can tell what you want before you even know you want it."

"Right," Frank laughed.

Gerard shook back his shaggy red hair and took a deep breath. “Veggie cheese burger and fries.” Gerard said narrowing his eyes at Frank. He smirked and turned to go.

“I kind of wanted the pasta,” Frank said before Gerard could get too far away.

Gerard turned back and tilted his head. “No, you don’t.”

Frank raised his eyebrows. “I’m pretty sure I do.”

Gerard’s eyes narrowed. He blinked. “It’s your lunch hour,” he said with a graceful flick of his hand. “Feel free to screw it up however you want.”

“Thanks,” Frank called. _Asshole._ He actually kind of did want a burger and fries now that Gerard had mentioned it. But he’d be damned if some, some part-time Santa was gonna tell him what to eat. Fuck _that_ noise. He rolled his shoulders. God, he felt so tense all of sudden. Like he was on the verge of screwing up. But he’d had the best morning of his working life. Nothing could possibly go wrong now.

Mikey tapped him on the back of the hand. “So,” he said. “You know the lamé apron is a joke, right? Ditto the feather gloves. The real aprons are under the commis’ station. Anyway, I guess you’d better, like, tell me about yourself. Or whatever.”

_Oh Jesus,_ thought Frank. Lunch was going to be painful.

*

“Your uniform is gold lamé? And you’re in love with some guy called Gerard?” Bob said, one eye on the TV screen and the other on the cardboard carton on noodles in his lap. He scooped up a mouth full and stuffed them in his mouth.

Frank sputtered out his rice and beans. “In love with... where the hell did you get that from?”

Bob put down his fork and squinted at Frank. To celebrate his first day at his new job, and not just the freak who lived in Bob’s basement (“You’ll always be a freak,” Bob had said, so Frank had climbed him until he relented), Frank had bought dinner.

Now they were sitting in the lounge eating it and playing Call of Duty while Frank tried explaining to Bob what Pan’s was like. Nothing he said did it justice though and he’d kind of given up after his fifth attempt at describing it more eloquently than “fucking awesome!”

Bob had asked him a few questions, and somehow he’d come up with L-O-V-E for Frank and Gerard. Like, What the actual fuck?

Frank put his empty carton on the coffee table and Peppers immediately leaped up into his arms.

_Treat?_

Frank picked out a little red bean an held it out for her. She licked it and sneezed. Frank rubbed behind her ears.

“I dunno,” Bob said, scratching his beard and then his tummy. “Just you’ve mentioned him thirty one times this evening.” He shrugged. “I made an assumption based on the statistical evidence.”

Frank rolled his eyes. “He’s just this guy, you know.”

Bob arched an eyebrow. “Yeah,” he said, holding out a finger to Peppers and letting her lick it. “I know.”

He stood up and started collecting the cartons and stacking them back in their plastic carried bag. Frank fought for a couple of seconds, trying to stay sitting down, before putting Peppers on the floor and jumping up to push Bob away from the coffee table. “I’ll do it!” he said, a little forcefully.

“Dude,” Bob said. “You payed for it. I should - ”

Frank had already cleared all the cartons and tied the bag up. “You hate washing dishes. It’s cool. Let me. I like it.”

Bob held up his hands and backed off. “Whatever you say, Frankie.”

God, that look on Bob’s face said it all. Frank really was a freak. A washing, cleaning and tidying freak. He took the trash into the kitchen, scooped Peppers up in his arms and scurried down to the basement. What the hell was wrong with him?

*

The next day, it turned out that Ray was deadly serious about Frank never washing dishes again. Within minutes of Frank arriving Ray’d set him up at the prep table with Adam and Zach and told him not to leave it until he could chop a carrot forty different ways and knew exactly how to skin an eggplant blindfolded. He’d threatened Zach with death by mouli if he so much as suggested Frank wash dishes ever again.

Over the course of the day Zach kept trying to get Frank to stuff chili seeds down the sous chef’s shirt neck, or swap Ray’s baking powder for corn flour. But Frank was way too careful with his job to go pulling stunts like that already. Although, no one seemed to give a shit when Brandon wrote swear words on the plates in gravy, or when Adam replaced the soaked gelatin for the aspic with plain old boiled water. Even Ray had laughed when the commis chef up-turned a mould of beef flavoured water on himself half an hour later.

Frank had to admit, watching the Phillips boys prank on every single person in the kitchen was pretty hilarious. He hoped he’d feel relaxed enough to pull stunts like that one day.

Mikey came and fetched him for lunch again, and this time they talked about books and bands and the people they worked with.

It turned out that Mikey was actually a pretty alright guy, with excellent taste in music and a dry, dour kind of wit that had Frank in stitches a couple of times over lunch - “Some chefs end up looking exactly like the food. Look at the patissiere. Have you ever seen a man look more like a croissant in your life? Neither have I.”

He had more that a few stories about the clandestine romances going on in the kitchen too, and was more than happy to share his insights with Frank.

According to Mikey, Keenan had a crush on Zach that defied reason. Frank looked through the kitchen doors and saw Keenan straighten Zach’s chef hat and smile at him dopily. Mikey raised an eyebrow at Frank as if to say _see what I mean?_ and Frank giggled into his smoothie.

Ray had come into the café not long after that, waving his ladle at Brandon emphatically. Dinner prep clearly wasn’t going smoothly.

“What about Ray?” Frank had asked. “Who’s he bumping hot potatoes with?”

“I have absolutely no idea,” Mikey replied, glancing at Ray. “Hey, let’s write him a secret admirer note and leaving stuck to his ladle. He’d fucking freak out.”

“Dude, that’s just mean,” Frank said with a giggle. Mean, and also, Frank was kind of in awe of Ray. If he was gonna start pranking, it sure as shit wasn’t gonna be with him and his ladle. “What’s with all the pranking anyway?” Frank asked nonchalantly. He chased a cherry around the bottom of his glass and speared it with his straw.

Mikey gave him a shrewd look. “Try it. You might like it,” he said, and stole a fry off Frank’s plate.

After lunch Frank put the gold lamé apron in a pot of consommé and asked Brandon if he would mind tasting it.

When Brandon’s ladle came up wrapped in gold fabric and dripping soup all over the place, Zach and Adam had cheered which made Frank puff up like a rooster. He’d accepted their high fives with glee. No one had ever high fived him in the kitchen before. He was pretty stoked.

*

Frank wasn’t sure how long he’d been in the store room, tidying for all he was worth, when he heard the door open.

The sound of his own name roused him from a bit of a stacking trance he’d been in and he came round the end of the boxes to see who it was. There were a couple of evening staff guys there Frank had seen, but never really talked to. He slunk back into he shadows so he could listen to what they had to say about him.

"Thank fuck they've got one of the littlies in the storeroom again,” one of them said. “It's been fucking chaos in here for months."

“Too right,” the other voice replied. There was the sound of heavy things being lifted. “Here’s to the little guys, I say!”

The sound of the storeroom door closing behind them released Frank, and he let out a long breath. _Littlie_? How did being short make him better at cleaning up a storeroom? If anything it made the job way harder. How the hell was he supposed to get up to the top shelves?

Frank cast around and found and step ladder against one wall. There would be a bunch of dangerous climbing in his future, that was for sure. Still, they were pleased he was here.

The storeroom door opened and Mikey stuck his head in. “Evening prep, Keenan wanted me to tell you.”

“Oh hey, yeah, cool. I’ll be right out.” Frank tested the ladder against one of the shelves. It was kind of rickety and not very stable. _Sheesh_.

“Hey,” Mikey said, coming all the way into the storeroom. “Sup?”

“I’m short,” Frank said, looking up the many, many rungs on the ladder, disappearing into the dark recesses of the storeroom ceiling.

Mikey blinked at him.

Frank snorted. “Yeah, newsflash, right? It’s just, I heard a couple of the guys say it was good there was a littlie in here.”

Mikey blinked some more.

Frank nodded. “That’s what they’re calling me, huh? Littlie?

Mikey shook his head. “No, they’re calling you Eyebrows, on account of...” Mikey waved a hand at Frank’s face. “And because Keenan’s insisting.”

“So what’s with the little thing?” Frank hopped up a few steps, well, three, to get to Mikey’s eye line.

Mikey rolled his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I can’t imagine,” he said. “Honestly.”

*

Keenan loomed over Frank, a meat cleaver in one hand and the head of chicken in the other.

There was a red chili poking out of the chicken’s mouth. Keenan’s face was deadly serious. “Frank,” he said, shaking the chicken’s head. “I want you to go over there, stealth mode, little brother, and put this red chili in that bowl of pastry creme. Can you do that for me?”

Behind him Zach snickered. “Chili in the pastry creme,” he said. “Priceless.”

Frank rolled his eyes. “Dude, come on. I’m not getting _fired_ over a fucking chili.”

Frank busied himself tearing open the sack of potatoes he’d just dragged out of the storeroom to prep for dinner. The chili did not belong in the pastry creme, Frank knew that; Keenan knew that. Frank suspected that even Zach knew that, although some of the things that kid got up to in the kitchen, Frank wasn’t so sure. It was kind of a wonder anything got cooked here at all.

“Who said anything about gittin’ burned, Frankie Uncanny Valley,” Keenan drawled back.

Frank frowned, what the hell did that even mean? Jesus, Keenan was a weirdo. He shook his head. Frank thought of Gerard, suddenly. He never seemed to bother with the pranks, and no one pranked him. Farnk wondered what he thought of it all. Gerard seemed above that kind of thing, aloof..well, maybe not aloof, but definitely above having his apron pocket filled with cumin seeds, or the pages of his order note book covered in lipstick kisses.

Keenan rolled his eyes. “That po faced mother fucker over there ne-eds this goddamn chili in his cream,” Keenan said, poking Frank in the cheek, disgustingly, with the chicken head. “Look at him, Look.”

Frank looked. The creme belonged to the pastry chef, a tall, long faced man who Frank realized he had not seen smile once in the kitchen since Frank’d arrived.

“Ryland does need cheering up,” Gerard said appearing as if out of nowhere next to the prep table. Frank and Keenan both jumped.

“Jesus, Way, you will give a man a heart attack one day,” Keenan said, waving his meat cleaver at him.

Gerard smiled, his eyes on Frank. “I hope not,” he said.

Keenan tsked. “Make noise when you walk!” He said, whacking the cleaver into the chopping board and using his free hand to slick back his hair. “You’ve zombified poor Iero here. Lookit, boy’s speechless!”

Frank realized suddenly, and with a great deal of heat flooding into his cheeks, that it was true. He’d just been standing there, staring at Gerard, a dopey half smile on his stupid face.

“Oh, Frankie’s no zombie,” Gerard said, leaning into Frank’s space a little and smiling. “He looks more - ” and Gerard’s eyes cut away to Keenan. “ _Ensorcelled_ don’t you think, Big K?”

Keenan laughed. “He looks terrified, Way. Leave him alone.”

But that was not what Frank wanted Gerard to do at all. Not at fucking all.

“Wait,” Frank said, too quietly to be heard, as Gerard, also laughing, pulled back and sauntered out of the kitchen, balancing his empty tray on the tips of his fingers.

When Frank looked back at Keenan, the chef was smirking. “Fear is a terrible thing, Eyebrows,” Keenan said. “It can destroy worlds, deflate souflees, _break hearts._ ”

“Um... okay?” Frank was nonplussed.

Keenan nodded. “Now, go and put this mother loving chili in the goddamn creme, or so help me Jesus, I will make you peel every Po-ta-ta in Chicago. Come on!”

Frank had no idea what Keenan was talking about, with the fear and all. Well, not in the kitchen context anyway. But in the Gerard context? Yeah, maybe the chef was right. Frank had never really believed in that whole ‘going non verbal’ thing when confronted by someone you thought was hot. But that had been before he met Gerard.

He was going to have to man up and talk to Gerard sensibly. And he was gonna have to relax a little at Pan’s.

They liked him here, and he liked them. And maybe, _maybe_ , Gerard liked him too? Maybe.

Frank plucked the chili out of the chicken’s beak, winked at Keenan and snuck across the kitchen.

*

The only downside of living with Bob was Bob’s workmates coming over all the time and annoying the crap out of Frank.

“Jepha and Quinn haven’t been here for months; what the hell are you talking about?” Bob said, turning his back on Frank and emptying the packet of chips into the big bowl.

Frank sighed. “I guess, but like... do they _have_ to come over tonight?”

Bob turned and raised an eyebrow at Frank.

“Okay, well, do I have to pretend I like them?”

Bob shut the fridge door and put his hands on his hips. “You never pretend you like them.”

Frank shrugged, sulkily.

“One time, Jepha asked me if you had aspergers, on account of you always slinking out of the room when they come in,” Bob said, opening the fridge again and retrieving a sixer from the shelf. “I had to explain that you’re just shy, and kind of an asshole around new people.”

Frank scuffed his toe on the lino. “I just like my space,” Frank said, and he could hear how petulant he sounded. “What can I say?”

“You can say you’ll stay and play a few rounds of Left 4 Dead with us, eat some chips and sink a few cans.”

“Okay,” Frank said reluctantly and carried the bowl out to the living room.

An hour later, Frank was ready to stuff the bowl down Bob’s neck and leave him for dead. Only, it wasn’t really his fault his buddies were giving him the third degree.

“I cannot believe you’re working at Pan’s,” Quinn said, standing by the DVD shelf, and Frank scowled. Quinn was definitely judging them based on their DVD selection. He had a nasty looking sneer etched on his face and he kept pulling out the cases, reading the covers and wincing.

Bob had gone out for another sixer, leaving him alone with Quinn and Jepha - a fact Frank was not going to let him forget anytime soon.

Jepha nodded earnestly. “I have heard some,” he exchanged a look with Quinn. “Bad shit about that place.”

Frank closed the book he was trying to hide behind and looked up at them. “Bad shit? That place is awesome, man. Don’t believe everything you hear.”

He wished Bob would come back so he could leave, or that they would all decide to go out. Yeah, that would be perfect, because Frank wanted to clean the skirting boards, and knew Bob would be all weird about it if Frank started while they had guests. Bob hated when he did that.

“Yeah,” Jepha said, sitting down next to Frank, _thanks for nothing_ , and putting his hand on Frank’s knee. “Frank, that’s like, like a pretty fucked up gig.” He exchanged another forboding look with Quinn.

Quinn snorted. “Fucked up, alright,” he said giving Frank the once over. Frank raised his eyebrows. What the fuck?

Frank opened his book and stared down at the page determinedly. “I met a guy,” he said. “Told me they were hiring. They hired me. I love it.” He hated feeling like he was explaining himself to these jerks. He didn’t need to tell them shit about his job. If they wanted to believe the best café in Chicago was fucked up, that was their stupid business.

Frank’d been at Pan’s for six weeks now. Nothing had blown up, caught fire, spoiled, curdled or been set free accidentally on purpose so far. It was the best job he’d ever had.

Jephas scrunched up his face. “It doesn’t really sound like your kind of gig, though, man,” he said, smiling sheepishly, like he was itching to say more, but really wanted Frank to ask first. Oh man, Frank was so not at home to that particular brand of passive aggressive crap tonight.

As far as _Frank_ was concerned, his gig was one where he wasn’t getting fired and people talked to him like he meant something. Like say, oh, _his gig at Pan’s._

“I mean,” Jepha gestured to Frank, undeterred by Frank’s silence. “I mean, they’re freaks over there, right? Like, it’s some kind of fetish bar?”

Against his better judgment, Frank looked up from the page. “What the actual fuck?”

Quinn nodded. “That’s what I heard, too. And I heard the owner is some kind of recluse freakshow.”

Frank snorted. Okay, so that might be kind of true. Frank’d heard all sorts of things about Pan too and he still hadn’t met the guy since he’d started there. But Mikey called him a “sweet little dude,” and Brandon talked about him like he invented rock’n’roll, so Frank figured he must be alright.

“Pan’s, it’s for weirdos,” Jepha said, wrinkling his nose? “Like, why would you work in a place like that? You’re not, you know, _like_ that.”

Frank shook his head. “Well, you’d know, Jepha,” Frank said. He would have thought they were making fun of him, pranking even, only Quinn didn’t have a sense of humor that Frank had ever detected, and Jepha was too nervous of pissing anyone off to joke around.

Jepha shrugged. “Well, we know Bob. And he’s a good guy. Straight up. And he’d never work in a place like that. It’s kind of infamous in Chicago. Everyone says they know someone who’s worked at Pan’s. But I never met someone who actually worked there. Like, that’s mega.” Jepha frowned. “It’s in Willmette, right?”

“I heard it was Cicero,” Quinn cut in.

“Well, you’re both wrong, about, like, everything. It’s in Oak Park, and it’s a fucking _café_ , not a sex club, for fuck’s sake. And I am exactly that type,” Frank said through gritted teeth. “And so is fucking Bob for that matter.”

Jepha shrugged. “Whatever, bro. I just want something healthy for you, you know?”

“Man,” Frank said shaking his head. “Are you serious?”

Jepha patted Frank’s knee. “I just want you to think about it Frankie.”

Frank took a deep breath. He closed his book, tucked it under his arm and stood up. “You’ve got a point,” he said. “Like, why be happy, when you can be normal, right?”

Jepha shrugged. “You might not be able to get other work when you get fired from this one,” he said. “And sometimes, it’s better not to do the stuff that’s fun,” he made air quotes round that word. “Because you’re not getting anywhere, you know? I mean, I’ve been in this business a long time Frankie. I know how it goes.”

Frank thought about Zach giving him lessons on how to tie water balloons; he thought about Brandon and the lamé apron; he thought about the way Gerard sometimes looked at him, all focused and attentive. Frank smiled.

He took a deep breath and patted Quinn on the shoulder as he passed him. “Jepha, Quinn,” he said, walking out into the hall and clicking his fingers for Peppers to follow him.

“Yeah, Frankie?” Jepha said.

“Go fuck yourselves.”

Frank strolled down the hall to the basement stairs and bounced down to the basement, slamming his door behind him. He threw himself on his bed where Peppers immediately bounded into his lap from her basket under the bed.

_Love Frank! Love Frank! Good Frank!_

Frank buried his nose in her golden fur and smiled.

*

“I want three over easy with a side of pig, burn that fucker, and shake that shit.” Frank had no idea what Brandon had just said, but apparently it was something to do with food. Food Frank was supposed to prepare in some way.

“Nope,” Frank said, shoulders sinking. “I got nothin’.”

“It’s okay,” Brandon said, patting Frank on the shoulder. “You’ll get it eventually.”

“I want three fried eggs flipped once, with crispy bacon, and a side order of hash browns,” Gerard said, coming up to the service hatch and leaning in.

Frank looked at Brandon. “Why can’t you just say that?”

Brandon blinked. “I _did_ just say that.”

Gerard looked at Frank. “He did just say that.”

“Yeah, but not like, _in English._ ”

Gerard giggled, which made Frank’s cheeks heat up.

“Gerard,” Brandon said with a smirk. “I’ll leave Frankie here in your capable hands. Maybe you can help him learn to translate, yeah?” And disappeared into the café.

Frank felt the heat spread down his chest. God _damn_ it.

“You’re all on your own on the grill today?”

“Keenan’s sick,” Frank said, and flipped one of the eggs onto a plate.

Gerard smiled, one eyebrow arched. “Keenan’s faking. Zach’s sick.”

Frank looked up sharply. “Please tell me you’re joking. I’m freaking out here!” Frank flipped the last two eggs and scrapped the bacon of the back of the grill. “Yuck,” he whined.

“Hey, that looks great,” Gerard said as Frank put the plate in front of him.

“It looks burnt,” Frank sighed.

“Exactly!” Gerard chimed. He looped his fingers around Frank’s wrist. “You’re doing great, Frankie. Really great.”

Frank swallowed. His skin tingled where Gerard touched him, and he realized with a flush of arousal that he wanted that feeling in more places than just his wrist.

Gerard darted away with the plate and Frank stood watching him disappear amidst the tables.

“Um, hello? Order up, Eyebrows.” Frank blinked and saw Brandon’s brother Adam, the one who Keenan wasn’t soft on, flapping an order at him.

Frank grabbed it and stuck it in the wire over the grill.

“Sunny day rain account, flipped on a shingle with frofro,” Adam said, and leaned on the counter examining his nails. “And go easy on the lallies this time.”

Frank took a deep breath, started cracking eggs, and hoped like hell that’s what Adam had just ordered.

*

At the end of his shift Frank stood in the alley, lit a smoke and inhaled deeply. He wasn’t sure he’d ever had a cigarette that tasted so good. It had been a while since he’d felt this shitty about his performance, but the heavy feeling in his chest was familiar. He’d fucking sucked in there today. In front of Gerard too. Jesus, that guy just messed with Frank’s calm, but in a way Frank was already desperate to have more of.

“Man, you make smoking look good, Frankie.” Gerard said stepping out of the shadows, a cigarette in his own hand and a grin on his face.

Frank choked a little on his smoke. “Huh?” _Smooth, Iero._

Gerard laughed. “I just mean, people who work the grill, you know, when they get a break they really enjoy their smoke. Right?”

Frank looked at the burning cherry on his cigarette. “I guess.”

Gerard leaned on the wall next to him, the long arch of his body from his shoulders down, angled towards Frank. He rubbed his thigh slowly and sucked on his bottom lip.

“Did I ever tell you about the time I worked the grill?” He said, looking up at Frank from under his lashes.

Frank shook his head.

Gerard lent in, his shoulder brushing Frank’s. “I broke forty five eggs,” he said, his voice low and secretive.

Frank laughed. “Yeah, well, you gotta break ‘em the cook ‘em,” he said, thorwing his cigarette, on the ground and grinding it in to the concrete.

Gerard scrunched up his nose. “True, but I broke them _on_ Brandon,” Gerard said with a shrug. He cut a look at Frank out the corner of his eye, and Frank cracked up. Gerard nudged him lightly with his elbow.

“Okay, okay, I get it. We all have bad days,” Frank said with a giggle. “I think you win in the ‘crap at the grill’ stakes though. Jesus.”

Gerard grinned. “Hey, your shift is over, right?” He tugged a little on Frank’s sleeve.

Frank nodded. “Yeah, I was gonna have a crack at the back of the storeroom. I haven’t even taken a look past the second row of shelves yet.”

Gerard shook his head. “Leave it,” he said, cupping Frank’s elbow and squeezing. “Let’s go get some ice cream. What do you say? It’s spring. The sun is shining, and like,” he shrugged again. “I wanna.”

Frank smiled, it was kind of hot out, now that Gerard mentioned it. And he was done for the day. Besides, Frank was pretty into how pleased and hopeful Gerard looked, the way he kept touching Frank. He wanted to keep him close, keep that look on his face a little while longer.

Gerard ducked inside, and came back a few seconds later with the little dark brown pug in tow.

“Oh!” Frank said, squatting down and holding out his hand to the pug. “He’s yours?”

Gerard grinned. “For my sins,” he said, rolling his eyes.

The pug came up and sniffed Frank’s fingers. “Hey, little guy,” Frank said. “Who’s so cute? Who’s so cute? What’s your name, little dude?”

The pug sat and looked up at Gerard and back at Frank.

“Raisin,” Gerard said. “The Angry Raisin.”

_Oh you did not just call me that, you over grown, lilly livered, flower fairy -_

Frank frowned. “He kinda does look angry, now you mention it.”

The pug growled, trotted over to the wall by Gerard and cocked it’s leg. Gerard made an appalled face. “Nice, buddy. Thanks.”

_You started it._

“Well, come on, let’s hit the park?” Gerard looked down at the pug, who woofled back. “Yeah, that park,” Gerard said. The pug yapped and yapped.

“Man, you make me wish I had a dog.”

Raisin stopped yapping and stared at Frank. It was kind of un-nerving. Gerard picked him up and tucked him under his arm. “Um, you – you don’t have one?” Gerard asked, and he scritched behind Raisin’s ears.

“Yeah, my roommate has one. And, like, I love her to bits. But, she’s not mine,” Frank said with a shrug. _Even if sometimes she feels like she’s mine,_ he didn’t say. Because it was weird, and kind of mean to Bob. Frank always felt a little crummy for stealing her love from him.

“Well, they love who they love,” Gerard said. “Right Raisin?” The little dog yapped and licked Gerard’s mouth. “Yueach!”

Frank giggled, and the way the little dog panted at him it was almost as if Raisin giggled back.

*

The three of them took the El into the city and Gerard led them down back alleys and side streets to the park in front of the City Library.

Just inside the gates was a guy with an old fashioned ice cream cart, painted with dancing ice cream cones. The guy had a pleasant, round-cheeked face, scruffy with whiskers. He also had a monkey sitting on his shoulder. Frank was used to people with weird pets by now. It was like Pan’s attracted the city’s craziest pet owners.

As it happened, Frank recognized the ice cream seller from the café. And then when Gerard chatted with him, Frank realized he must be a regular. It was a nice feeling, Frank thought, to know people, to be connected. He’d never really had that before.

He frowned, only he must have once, right? Back home, with his – his family and friends? But Frank couldn’t recall ever having felt part of a community, not like this. Not where you could bump into someone in the park and have something to say to them.

“Ray said we’re all on for B&A tonight, if you’re still keen?” Gerard said to the seller, whose name was apparently Spencer.

“Count me and Bden in. Eight?” Spencer said, accepting the handful of coins Gerard offered him before Frank could protest about Gerard paying. But maybe they were in some kind of barter thing, because Gerard had paid with odd shaped coins like the ones he’d given Frank just before Christmas.

After Spencer handed them their cones and they’d wondered a little way along the path, Frank turned to Gerard and said, “You probably don’t remember, but, like, you gave me a bunch of those funny coins once. And it kind of saved my ass.”

Gerard looked startled. “Yeah, I did.”

“You remember?”

Gerard looked sheepish, and Frank _felt_ sheepish. It was weird they were only bringing it up now. It was weird that Frank was bringing it up at all. But Maybe not, because clearly it had made as much of an impression on Gerard as it had on Frank. Frank’s stomach flipped.

The corner of Gerard’s mouth twitched and he flapped a hand at Frank. “I recognized you that day,” Gerard said, and Frank felt his face heat up. “I mean, the day you came in. Just because you have, you know, your face is – um...” Gerard trailed off and concentrated on his ice cream.

“My face is what, dude?” Frank said, stopping Gerard with a hand on his elbow. “Jesus, don’t leave me hanging like that. What’s wrong with my face?”

“Nothing!” Gerard replied, appalled. “Nothing is wrong with your face. I like your face. I love – love that people call you Eyebrows.” Gerard trailed off.

Frank hid his grin in his chocolate chip and pretended not to see Gerard wince and shake his head, as if he was embarrassed at himself.

“I like your face too,” Frank said quietly.

“Well,” said Gerard, just as quietly. “Good.”

They both concentrated on their double scoops in companionable silence as they strolled through the park, amid the dappled sunlight, the chittering chattering of the birds, and the Angry Raisin’s little yips and yaps, telling the birds to fuck off.

“Man, I love this place,” Frank said, grinning at Gerard as they made their way towards the Library. “It’s like, my favorite building in the city.”

Frank turned to see Gerard looking at him, a strange little half smile on his face. “It is?”

“Totally, I mean, look at those fucking gargoyles, man. It’s insane. And, like, these steps, up to the massive fucking door, with the studs and the Latin. Or whatever the hell that is. Crazy assed.”

“It’s Gaelic,” Gerard said. Looking up at the words above the library lintel. They both sat on the steps, Gerard a couple down from Frank so his shoulder was paralelle with Frank’s knee.

“Yeah? Well, it’s fucking cool,” Frank said “Like something from a horror movie, or something.”

Gerard craned his ead back to see the lintel. “Do you – you can’t read it?”

Frank frowned, took a bite of his waffle cone and munched on it. “No,” he laughed. “I’m Italian- American, from New Jersey. We do garlic, not Gaelic.”

Gerard laughed. “It says: ‘Here is the doorway to all the worlds.’”

Gerard wasn’t making it up, Frank could tell. “Holy shit dude. You can read that?”

Gerard crumbled up the rest of his cone and threw it to the birds that strutted across the steps.

_Flee! No feed! But then flee! But feeding first! With a mind to flee!_

The Angry Raisin took off after the flock, yipping and yapping, and the birds cawed as they rose in the air. _Flee!!!! Right the fuck now!!_

Frank felt a funny little giggle rise up in him.

“Sure. My great-grandmother claimed decent from Mab, the Queen of the Fairies. Nanna taught me to speak the old language when I was just a little sprite.” He gave Frank a level look.

“Wha – seriously?” Frank stuttered.

“Nah,” said Gerard, dusting crumbs off his hands and quirking a smile. “There’s a translation on the plaque over there.”

Frank let the little giggle out and Gerard grinned back.

“So what else does it say, the plaque?”

Gerard leaned back and sprawled down the steps, closing his eyes and tilting his face up into the sun.

Frank couldn’t help but let himself look at Gerard, the long lean planes of his body, the delicate arch of his wrists, the curve of his neck. He was so... It was as if he were carved in marble, or cast in bronze. He was, Frank could admit it, he was fucking beautiful. His skin had this lustre, creamy and smooth. And he seemed at once so young, and so much older than Frank. The kind of guy people called an ‘old soul,’ Frank guessed. He let his gaze linger over Gerard’s long legs, and the way his tight jeans left, well, pretty much nothing to Frank’s imagination.

Gerard hmmed, and Frank’s eyes darted to his face to see him watching Frank, one eye open.

Frank swallowed. _Jesus_ , Frank could be such a fucking creeper sometimes.

“It says the guy who made this building fled Ireland in the famines,” Gerard said, “And wanted to create a place where all people could be free. So be built a library. Because knowledge is freedom.”

Frank grinned. “Yeah?”

Gerard nodded.

Frank lay back and put his hands behind his head. “That? Is fucking awesome. I mean, I know exactly what he means, because books can transport you, man. They, they’re little gateways to other lives you’ve never gotten to live, other places and people. Yeah, that is so cool.”

He looked back up the steps the doors, and the carved masonry above it. “Awesome.”

“You like to read?” Gerard asked, his head still thrown back, soaking up the sun.

“I like libraries,” Frank said, leaning back himself. “I like this one particularly.”

Gerard squinted one eye open again. Raisin trotted over and Gerard made an ‘unf’ sound when the little pug unceremoniously leaped up on his midriff, scrambled around in a circle for a few seconds and plonked himself down for a nap.

“Because it’s a kind of a gateway?” he asked, stroking Rasin’s rippling fur. Frank nodded. Gerard lifted his head and looked straight at Frank. “But what if it was real?”

“What if what was real?” Frank asked, unable to look away from Gerard’s fingers stroking Rasin.

“Everything,” Gerard said, and closed his eyes into the sunlight again.

*

“You’re going.” Bob stood in the middle of Frank’s bedroom, hands on his hips, one eyebrow arched menacingly.

“I don’t wanna, I mean, it wasn’t really an invite, you know?” Frank sat on his bed, hand between his knees, trying not to look Bob in the eye. “Besides, like, the planters really need dusting, and I was going to soak the curtains...”

“‘You should come play with us some time, like tonight,’ is an invite, Frank. And I can dust my own goddamn planters, for Christ’s sake. You’re fucking going.”

Frank sighed. He never should have told Bob that Gerard kind of semi- maybe invited Frank to games night at Ray’s house.

Frank shrugged on his jacket and trudged out into the hall. Bob followed him and when he stopped in front of the door way, Bob reached around and pulled the front door open.

Frank trudged slowly out. On the door mat he turned around and looked up at Bob. “You’re not going to dust the planters at all are you?”

“Non,” Bob said, and shut the door in Frank’s face.

The El ride to Ray’s wasn’t far. Frank felt kind of dorky coming empty handed, but Gerard had been pretty emphatic about that. “Ray likes to play host, dude, just like, come as you are.”

So that’s what Frank was doing, standing on the porch outside the strange little cottage in Oak Park that Gerard’s directions had led him to, just arriving as is. He pulled at the hem of his tee shirt, and tried to pat down the fluffy tuft of hair at the back of his head that just refused to be tamed.

He knocked at the door.

The door flew open a few seconds later. “Eyebrows!” Ray cried. He had a beer in one hand, what looked like some kind of bearded dragon-lizard-thing draped over his shoulders, and grin on his face. “Awesome. Come in immediately and tell Way he’s wrong.”

Ray drew Frank by the elbow into the cozy little living room, crowded with his work mates, their freinds and a small menagerie of animals. Two cats, three dogs, including Raisin, a monkey and Ray’s huge fucking lizard. Frank suddenly missed Peppers a lot.

Mikey nodded at him, and shifted over so he could sit on the sofa too. He had a fat, grinning green-eyed cat in his lap, that licked it’s paw at Frank as soon as he sat down.

_..._

“This is Dewees,” Mikey said. The cat put out one paw and promptly dug it’s claws into paw from Frank’s knee. Mikey unhitched Dewees’ paw from Frank. “Say hello nicely.”

“Hello, Nicely,” Frank winced.

“I was talking to the cat,” Mikey said.

Brandon came into the room from what appeared to be the kitchen and handed Frank a beer.

Zach held out a bowl of chips to him. “Keenan made them. They’re really good,” he said. And behind him Keenan preened.

Gerard was kneeling by the coffee table, over which was spread a map of what looked a little like Chicago, if Chicago had been laid out by acid casualties and psychopaths. There were little hand painted figures on the map, and in front of Gerard was a screen made from open books.

“I rolled a six and a nine, and a sixteen,” Brandon said, kneeling next to the table and handing Gerard a coke. Brandon stroked his chin and surveyed the board. “I go to the bank and make a term deposit.”

Gerard squinted at a pile of notes behind the screen. “You go to the bank,” he said, looking at Brandon. “But bump into an old friend who tells you about a pyramid investment scheme he’s just started. You consider giving him all your money.”

“I do not,” Brandon said indignantly.

“Brandon. You do.”

Frank frowned and turned to Mikey. “Um, what the hell are you guys playing?”

Mikey dragged his eyes away from the board. “B&A,” he said. “I know, it’s kind of dorky, but Gee and I used to play it when we were growing up and, like, it’s kind of nostalgic fun. I guess.” He frowned and looked back at the board. “You never played.” He said, not a question, a statement. But he looked a little stricken when he said it.

“I’ve never heard of this game.” Frank said, and felt a little sorry about it when Mikey rubbed his eyes, and looked forlornly at Gerard.

“Yeah, I figured,” Mikey stood and went over the Gerard, saying something to him before going into the kitchen and rummaging around in the fridge.

Gerard smiled at Frank. “Hey!” he said. “Come sit over here with me and I’ll show you how to play.”

Frank went over and knelt next to Gerard. There was a big, fat book open in front of him, covered in notes and scrawls, and a stack of papers next to that covered in numbers and names Frank had never seen and lists of skills Frank thought were odd: _Holds driver’s licence_. _Has traveled abroad_. _Multiple partners_. _Married_. On the next sheet was listed _Can cook_ , and _Babies like you_.

“You’ll have to go slow,” Frank said. “This is like totally weird to me.”

Gerard rewarded Frank’s naivete with one of his coy half smiles. “It’s cool. It’s just like riding a bicycle.”

Frank frowned. “Yeah, but--” Gerard put a hand on Frank’s arm and interrupted.

“I mean, what I mean is, it won’t take you long to catch up.”

Frank nodded and shifted closer to the table.

Brandon had the dice again. He rolled and Gerard gave him some directions, which sounded to Frank like the rules for having the world’s most boring office job. He frowned down at the book Gerard was reading from. ‘Basements and Attics’, the game was called. And suddenly Frank realised what it reminded him of.

“This is - this is like Dungeons and Dragons, only really shit!” Frank said, way louder than he’d intended.

Twelve pairs of eyes stared back at him. Mikey shook his head. Frank’s heart sank like a fucking stone.

Raisin yapped.

_Nice one ass hat_.

“Okay guys, let’s take a break for, um, more snacks!” Ray said, and the guys all stood and trooped into the kitchen, grumbling, followed by their pets. Frank winced.

“Smooth, Frankie,” Gerard said, and started shuffling through his pile of papers. Raisin licked his balls, and then lept up and tried to lick Frank’s face.

“Yargh!”

“Raisin, knock it off, go ask Ray for a chew.” Gerard said, not really looking up.

Frank was still trying to wipe all the dog-ball-scented dog spit off his arm, and didn’t notice Raisin trotting off into the kitchen at all.

“I’m sorry, man,” Frank said finally, picking at his nails and biting his lip. “I just - Why play a game about real life? Like, it’s so _boring_.”

Gerard sat back on his heels and gave Frank a pensive look. “Is it?”

Frank rolled his eyes. “Fuck yeah it is. I mean, I go to the bank, and I go shopping. But, like, I’ve never fought a Dragon, or, or cast a spell.”

Gerard smiled. “Like in Dungeons and Dragons?

“Exactly!” Frank said, and waved at the table. “Like what about the dragons? What about the mages and the half elves?”

“You think _this_ real life is boring, Frankie?” Gerard looked thoughtful.

Frank nodded. “It’s fucking insanely dull. I mean, It was before I started working at Pan’s anyway. It fucking sucked. Getting fired, getting kicked out of my flat, begging for work from people I should have been punching in the ear. No money, no future. I mean. Most men lead lives of quiet desperation, right?”

Gerard laughed. “Right.”

“So why play that?” Frank rubbed his eye. Things were getting a little blurry. Maybe it was the beer. Gerard’s skin looked funny, kind of brazen, flowey almost. Frank shook his head.

Gerard smiled. “Why do you think we play it?”

Frank blinked. “This is what I’m asking you.”

Gerard leaned forward and whispered. “Don’t tell the other guys I told you, but in _real_ life Dragons are lazy. It’s practically impossible to get one to fight you.”

Frank shook his head. He never got a straight answer from Gerard and apparently, he wasn’t going to get one now.

Gerard leaned back and waved his hand around airily. “Half elves are stuck up. I mean, hello, they’re immortal. You don’t want to hang out with those guys. Ditto Mages.”

“Gerard.” Mikey was standing by the table, a glass in one hand and a plate in the other. He had a face like thunder, but sometimes it was hard to tell with Mikey.

Gerard just smiled and shrugged one shoulder. “Game time, kids!” he chimed and turned back to the table. “Okay, Zach, it’s your roll, and before you ask, no, you may not use your own dice. I know you of old, sunshine.”

Frank, no less confused about why there even was a game time, sat back on his haunches and sipped his beer.

*

After coming home from the game night Frank hadn’t been able to sleep so well. He’d tossed and turned, feeling out of sorts in a way he never usually felt at home in his basement.

At first light he gave in and got up. He read for a while, fucked around on the internet and finally, when he could resist the urge no longer, snuck up the basement stairs into the kitchen.

Frank opened the cupboard and pulled out Bob’s breakfast bowl and mug, and nearly threw both in the air when Bob, sitting at the kitchen table said, “Dude, this has got to stop.”

“Jesus, Bob!” Frank wheezed, clutching his chest, the mug hanging from one finger.

“I mean it,” Bob said, sitting in one of the kitchen chairs, arms folded across his chest. “You are not my, my _you know_. You’re not. So, knock this shit off.”

Frank was speechless. “Bob,” he began, swallowing. “I don’t. I’m not, like. _Crushing_ on you or anything.” Frank’s face got hot and he winced even saying the word _crushing_ out loud.

“Jesus Christ Iero,” Bob said, rolling his eyes. “I fucking know that much.”

“Okay, God, good,” Frank said, chest heaving in relief. “I’m just, I’m not. I’m not doing anything,” he finished, pathetically, looking down at the bowl and cup in his hands and placing them on the counter.

Peppers trotted into the room and sat looking up at Frank.

"You know, she's really your dog," Bob said.

“How can you say that?” Frank’s stomach sank. “Peppers is, she’s your girl.”

Bob raised his eyebrows at Frank, and Frank looked down at Peppers.

_Love Frank. Frank love Peppers. Love Frank. Love Frank. Frank play?_

“Bob, man...”

“It’s okay. Just, stop making my fucking breakfast and take your dog for a walk.”

He stood up and left and room, and few minutes later Frank could hear the sounds of Call of Duty revving up in the living room. Peppers’ tail thumped on the floor.

“Okay, kid,” he said. “Who’s your daddy?”

Peppers sprang up onto her hind feet, dancing about and yapping.

_Frank!_

Frank crouched down. “Well, alright then,” he said, scooping her up and heading out into the hall.

He put her little jacket on her, clipped her lead to it and headed out to walk.

They ended up walking a lot further and longer than Frank had expected to, and by the time he turned them around for home, Frank realised he was going to be late.

If Gerard was allowed his dog in the café, and Ray his bearded dragon and Mikey his cat, then Frank didn’t see why a little peach like Peppers couldn’t come too. They hopped the nearest El and headed for Oak Park.

_I want to get off the train and chase birds_

Frank looked around for who spoke and noticed at the woman sitting across the aisle smiling at him.

“Well, It’s nice weather for it?” he said to her. Man, city people were kind of fucked up.

Frank went back to his own thoughts. Simplest explanation for Bob’s behavior was that he was just not cool with Frank doing everything round the house, and that was fine. Probably it wasn’t normal to want to iron your room mate’s underwear. Frank snuggled Peppers up in his arms. What the hell was he thinking. Of course it wasn’t normal to want to iron your room mate’s fucking shorts. Jesus.

_I love snuggles! I’d snuggle all day if I could._

Frank determinedly did not look at the lady across the aisle this time, _sheesh_. The train pulled up at Oak Park. Frank let Peppers down an stood up. The lady gave him a half smile as he walked past to the doors. Frank half smiled back. “Thanks for the TMI, Lady,” he muttered under his breath, and hopped off the train.

*

Peppers disappeared between the tables as soon as they arrived at Pan’s and a gaggle of rabbits, dogs, geese (!), mice and monkeys ambled after her. As Frank watched them all sniffing, licking and grooming each other it occurred to him how great it was there were never any fights. He guessed Pan’s pets were happy pets. Peppers looked happy, playing with Raisin and Dewees, so Frank left her too it and got to work.

In the kitchen Frank got stuck into a pile of courgettes and red peppers getting ready for the lunch time rush. The radio was playing lightly in the background, something he’d never heard before that sounded like a crazy cross between Thelonius Monk and Ke$ha.

“Saturjazzzzzz,” Keenan hissed at him over the prep table, and started juggling his paring knives.

Frank laughed, but the rhythm of the jazz seeped into his chopping and soon he found himself zoning out and humming along. He reached past Zach for another pepper, just as Zach passed Adam a courgette, the three of them working in synch, like some kind of veggie juggling act of their own. Frank threw a pepper up in the air and sliced it into little pieces on it’s way down. Awesome! He didn’t even know he could _do_ that. Some of Keenan’s frankly freaky looking chopping tricks must be rubbing off on Frank.

When the song finished, Frank looked up and discovered he’d chopped twice as much as he thought and the lunch prep was done and dusted. He stood back from the prep table, hands on his hips and smiled. His kitchen-fu was really, truly back.

“That is some impressive cuttin’, Frankie, ” Gerard said, cocking his hip against the prep tables and he small pile of empty red pepper boxes.

Frank grinned. He was even getting used to Gerard’s habit of sneaking up on people. This was a good day.

“There’s someone in the café asking after you” Gerard said. “Figured it was okay to get you since Peppers said he was okay.”

Frank’s eyebrows went up and Gerard cleared his throat. “I mean, you know, she was yapping and jumping up on him, so I figured you knew him.”

“Huh,” said Frank.

“So yeah, anyway, there’s a guy,” Gerard gestured over his shoulder, and then studied the pile of empty red pepper boxes closely, his bottom lip trapped between his teeth.

“Thanks,” Frank said, taking off his apron and heading out into the café. He glanced back at Gerard just as he went out the door, and saw Keenan patting him on the shoulder and Gerard shaking his head. Frank skipped out to the café, kind of glad thinking that Gerard might be bummed a dude that Peppers knew had come in asking for Frank and what that might mean.

He pushed open the café doors and was met with a stony silence. Which was totally creepy and weird considering every table was full.

And staring at a big blond guy standing near the door, clutching a jacket to his chest, scanning the room from under his brows.

“Bob!” Frank cried and set off, winding his way through the café towards his friend. The noise level started to creep back up again as the customers went back to their lunches and their conversations. But Frank could feel their eyes following him as he passed. He guessed it was odd to see a stranger at the café. Pan’s kind of thrived on regulars.

Brandon grabbed Frank’s elbow as he passed. “Who is that guy?” He asked, voice low and eyes wide. “He said he had your jacket.”

Frank smiled at him. “He’s my roommate,” Frank said. “Guess he figured I needed it.” Frank shrugged, and tried to sidle past Brandon.

Brandon grabbed his arm again. “Are you sure, Frankie?” Brandon said, and bit his lip.

Frank glanced at Bob who was in the middle of what looked like a staring contest with Ray’s bearded dragon, which was sitting in the top branches of a big, old fashioned hat stand. It’s yellow tongue darted in Bob’s direction. Bob took the smallest step back.

“Um, pretty sure, dude,” Frank said. He slapped Brandon on the shoulder and moved past him towards Bob.

“Hey!” he said cheerily, remembering how out of sorts Bob had been that morning. “You found us! Come to check out our kitchens?”

Bob’s eyes went wider. “Nope,” he said, his eyes cutting left to the kitchen doors swinging open and shut as waiters came and went.

“Well, you want lunch?” Frank gestured at a table over to one side that had just come free.

Bob’s eyes practically bugged out of his head. “Eat here? No,” he said, shaking his head.

Then he took a deep breath, visibly fought to relax his shoulders and smiled at Frank. “I already ate. I just,” he began again, taking another deep breath and glancing around the room before fixing Frank with a level stare. “I brought you a jacket. You’ll need it before coming back to the flat tonight.”

The room went strangely silent again. Frank looked over his shoulder at a table full of people all staring at him. He raised his eyebrows at them and reached out to take the jacket. _Weirdos_.

Bob let out a long breath and smiled at Frank.

Frank held up the jacket. “Oh, hey!” He said. “This, this isn’t mine.” The thing seemed a little too big for Frank, but way too small to be Bob’s. Frank shrugged it on anyway. It fit him fine.

“Thanks Bob!” Frank said. And actually the jacket felt good on his shoulders; light and comfy. Frank grinned. “I don’t know where it came from, but I’m not gonna look a fashionable gift horse in the mouth.”

Bob grinned, and Frank felt like he’d relaxed in some way. “You’re always welcome in my house, Frankie,” he said.

Frank frowned. “Um, I should fucking hope so. I pay half the rent.”

“Of course,” Bob said, pointing a finger at Frank. “That’s what I meant.”

“Hey, man, I gotta,” Frank gestured over his shoulder at the kitchen. “Lunch rush is about to kick off, you know how it is.”

“Sure,” Bob said. “Hey, you want me to take Peppers home for you?”

“Nah,” Frank said, scanning the room until he found her. She was asleep in a little puppy pile, curled around the Angry Raisin, with Mikey’s big fluffy, tortoise shell cat wrapped around them both. “I think she’s fine where she is. Oh, hey, don’t like, mention the animals to anyone, okay?”

Bob’s eyes were getting wide again. “Uh, okay.”

“Yeah,” said Frank, picking up the bearded dragon which was making a lunge for Bob, and slinging it over his shoulder. “I don’t know how Pan gets away with it, but the customers seem to love it.” He shrugged. “Catch you later man.”

And Frank turned and went back to the kitchens to get the grill hot and ready for lunch.

*

“Nice Jacket, Frankie,” Mikey said.

They were hiding out in the storeroom. Ray was having one of his manic, ‘A Man Obsessed’, moments and Frank had learned it was best to get the hell out of his way, unless he wanted an accidental ladle to the face, or a lecture on how to correctly scrub under one’s nails.

“Bob gave it to me,” Frank said, reaching up from one of the top rungs to put a case of sardines away.

Frank clambered down the ladder and grabbed another case.

Finally Mikey said, “Dude, that's mega.”

Frank looked over his shoulder. “It's just a jacket, not an engagement ring. Come on.”

Mikey picked up another box of sardines and brought it to Frank. He sighed.

“I thought this would be easier. But it’s just, it’s getting _harder_ ” Mikey said, frowning ever so slightly.

Frank bit his lip. God, was Mikey talking about the job? Frank thought he was doing so well at Pan’s. “You, like, you think I’m screwing up?”

“What?” Mikey said, shaking away whatever he’d been thinking to focus on Frank. “No, I think, I just think you should, you know, open you eyes to the - the possibilities, Frank.”

Frank was really confused. What the hell possibilities did Mikey mean exactly? The sardines were in the right place, and what’s more, _Frank_ was in the right place. The triumphant return of his kitchen-fu had made that clear earlier.

“You know,” Mikey said emphatically. “Stop,” he waved his hands about a little. “ _Repressing_.”

_Oh._ “I’m not repressing anything,” he said, jumping down from the ladder and grabbing Mikey’s hands and squeezing them before stepping back and holding out his arms. “I’m not into Bob. Honestly. This jacket is not a big deal.”

Mikey peered at him over the rim of his glasses.

Frank smiled. “And before you ask, yes, I am totally out. You can tell anyone. I’m queer. I’m here. I couldn’t give a fuck about it."

Mikey closed his eyes slowly and pressed his fingers up under the lenses. “That’s - that’s great,” he said, and wandered back to the wall for another round of listless leaning.

*

Frank decided to stay in the store room for the rest of the day after Mikey finally went back to work. Ray’d come get him if they needed him on prep.

At some point in the afternoon he uncovered a box of seasonal decorations stuffed at the back of the biggest set of shelves. Only, they weren’t for any seasonal holidays Frank had ever celebrated before.

“What the hell is Lammastide?” Frank said to himself as he unfurled a banner with the word painted on it in big, corn-yellow letters. He wondered if Gerard knew. He wondered where Gerard was, he hadn’t seen him much today. Frank started pulling the banners out and unfurling them; _Ostara_ , _Mabon_ , Yule. The _Lammastide_ one was the biggest and had pictures of pumpkins and wheat and apples all over it. It was pretty well done.

“It’s the Harvest festival. For baking bread,” Gerard said, sending Frank about a foot in the air. He hadn’t even heard the store room door open. He was getting better at coping with Gerard’s sneaky ways, but every now and then, he caught Frank a good one.

“Jesus!”

“Sorry, Frankie,” he said, and sounded anything but sorry. A smile twitched the corner of his mouth. “I shouldn’t come in here without asking your permission.”

Frank took a few deep breaths and let his heart slow back down to normal again. “You, you’re like, you always have my permission, but like,” He took a deep breath and shook himself. “Maybe you should wear a bell, like Mikey’s cat?”

Gerard laughed. “On a little collar? I don’t know about that.”

Frank felt his face flush, and the started futzing with the banners trying to get them straight so he could roll them all up together.

Gerard, ran the banner from Frank’s hand through his fingers. “Lammastide isn’t for a couple of months,” he said, letting the banners drop and bending down and rifling through the box. He came up with a dark blue banner with red flaming letters on it. “Beltane is next,” he said.

He was standing really close, Frank was only just realizing. He felt the ghost of Gerard’s breath on his cheek. “You know what Beltane’s all about, Frankie?”

Frank didn’t know, but the word kind of made him feel uncomfortable. He took a step back, rolled the banners and put them back in the box. He didn’t know what to do with his hands suddenly, so he picked up a can of beets and fidgeted with it. “That, that more of the Gaelic your granny taught you?” He said, without really looking at Gerard.

Gerard chuffed a laugh and moved closer to Frank again. “Nah, it was part of a seasonal food thing,” Gerard said eventually, gesturing to the box of decorations. “Pan came up with it. You know, vegan, only serving food that was in season. We, um, we still do, sometimes.”

He stepped closer again and took the can out of Frank’s hand. He shook it a little. “But, like, everyone loves beets though, right?”

Frank looked up. Gerard was so close, his eyes were so golden and he smelled like... like something good from Frank’s childhood; something really good. Like the sharp tang of mint, the blossom of a honey apple tree, and something else, something... smokey.

He leaned forward.

“Frankie,” Gerard breathed.

The storeroom door flew open and light flooded the room. “Oh my god! Guys! You better get out here!” Zach stood in the doorway flapping a hand at them to follow him. “Raisin is shagging the little tea cup Chihuahua!”

“What the fuck?” Frank pushed past Gerard and Zach and made for the café.

On the little rug in front of the fire place the Angry Raisin was leaping around in circles trying desperately to get behind Peppers, who, much to Frank’s relief, was having none of it.

Every time Raisin got behind her, Peppers would leap away and round on him, dropping into play position and wagging her tail furiously.

“Dude, your dog is molesting my dog,” Frank wailed. He knelt and whistled for Peppers, who ran a little way towards Frank and then stopped still, waging her tail and - _Oh dear God_ \- backed up to Raisin and wriggled at him.

“Now Frank, we have a no slut shaming policy in this work place,” Brandon said with mock solemnity. “Pan’s is a sex positive working environment.”

“Amen to that,” Zach said, and he winked at Keenan who went bright red and dropped his cleaver.

“I’m not _slut shaming_ my goddamn dog, Bran’,” Frank said, giving up on calling her and just grabbing Peppers up out of Raisin’s lascivious reach.

“You want ten million puppies around this place? C’mon, Peppers, didn’t your mama ever teach you to play hard to get?” Frank scritched her ears and tried to stop her yapping at Raisin.

_This is true love. True love! I am his, and he is mine, for all eternity!_

“Thanks a lot, Zee,” Frank said. He was impressed inspite of himself that Zach did such a good impression of a female Chuchu.

“Dude,” Zach said. “I’m no biologist, but I think that’s called bolting the gate after the horse has been knocked up.”

“Zach, shut up,” Gerard said. He put his hand on Frank’s shoulder and squeezed, and suddenly Frank remembered Gerard’s scent, and the storeroom, and the fact that Gerard had called him ‘Frankie’ and almost kissed him not a minute ago.

“Oh my God, can you imagine what the puppies will look like?!” Zach cackled, ignoring him completely.

“Shut the fuck up, Zach,” Gerard snapped. But he wasn’t looking at Zach, he was staring at Raisin. And Frank wasn’t sure, but he could have sworn Raisin winked.

*

It was the first time Frank had been pleased to leave Pan’s at the end of his shift. And to be honest, he wasn’t really _that_ pleased, although he was glad he wouldn’t have to put up with anymore puppy-mama jokes from Zach and Keenan for a few hours, anyway.

Gerard had left early, taking Raisin with him. And the sparkle had kind of gone out of the evening after that.

Not even Adam super-gluing all the wooden spoons together and watching Mikey try to calm Ray down as he ranted and raved over them could cheer Frank up.

He’d spent most of the rest of his shift in the storeroom, with Peppers curled in one of the empty boxes, while he dusted and stacked and ordered things.

The café had been closed up when he’d finally left. Only a couple lights were still on, the one in Ray’s office, and the one over the prep table.

He’d turned that one off and headed out with Peppers in tow, locking the front door behind him.

Frank was halfway to the El when he realized he’d left his new jacket back at Pan’s. The weather must really be turning, because he hadn’t even noticed; it’d been so warm when he left the café. But it was new, and a gift from Bob, and he didn’t want to go back to the house without it.

They turned back, and Frank left Peppers tied up to the gate as he clambered over the fence to the back door he knew was still open. Ray’s light was still on.

“I’ll be right back, babycakes,” he said, scruffing her head through the chicken wire, and Peppers licked his hand.

He’d thought Ray was still working, but when he snuck into the kitchen - with every intention of scaring the shit out of him in his office, Brandon would be so proud - the light above the veggie prep area was back on. And although he couldn’t really see anyone in the gloom, he heard pots knocking together, and what sounded, vaguely, like feet slipping on linoleum.

Moving around the prep station, behind the patisserie station, Frank could see two figures, shadowed, moving in the half light.

He could tell immediately that one was Ray - the head chef didn't let his impressive mane out all that often in the kitchens, but when he did, it was hard to miss.

What was also hard to miss was that Ray was shirtless. And grappling with someone, pushing their arms out behing them, looming over them.

Frank paused and ducked down behind the prep bench. That someone was also shirtless.

That someone was also Mikey.

And they weren’t grappling.

The sound of the gasps and rasping breath hit Frank then. He was watching his friends fuck. He slapped one hand over his eyes. _Oh god_. Frank had to get out of there and fast. He shouldn't be... well, not that _they_ should be, in the frikken _kitchen_ , but still. Frank didn't want to intrude, and he sure as shit didn’t want them to know he’d seen them.

Mikey was his friend, and Ray was his, his, well, supervisor, he guessed, and in the weeks he’d been working with them he’d never once had an inkling that they were anything more than work mates. So either this was new, or they’d been keeping it real secret. Whatever the case, Frank had to get the fuck out.

“You can feel it, can’t you?” Ray was saying, his forehead pressed to Mikey’s. “It’s nearly here. It’s so, so fucking hot.”

“God, yeah,” Mikey breathed. “Oh - oh, Ray.”

Frank yanked his hand away from his eyes and clamped two hands over his ears. He could not, could not, hear his friends’ dirty talk. < i>For the love of God. He started to crab walk back the way he came, but had to let go of his ears and balance himself or risk falling on his ass.

He edged round the back of the prep station and had the doors in sight when the sound of something clipping and clopping hollowly on the concrete floor made him glance back - and stopped him in his tracks.

Frank could see both of them now, Ray pressed against Mikey, between the stations. Mikey was naked, his legs up around Ray’s waist. And he was glowing. Not the kind of ‘glowing’ you read about in romance novels, but actual fucking light was coming from him. His skin, silver and white in the muted light seemed to ripple and shimmer, like fish scales only lit up, from within, like nothing Frank had ever seen before. He blinked. Was that body paint? Without thinking Frank edged a little closer.

Ray leaned over Mikey, one hand at his waist and the other gripping Mikey's wrist, his face buried in Mikey's neck. Mikey arched and bit his bottom lip, pulling his legs up higher around Ray's waist, hooking his ankles together. His muscles flexed and Ray hoisted Mikey up, pulling him back down to meet his hips. Mikey moaned.

"Fuck," Ray whined as his hips kicked forward. And he stomped. His cloven. Hoof.

Frank jammed a fist in his mouth to stop himself from shouting. Because Ray had _hooves_. Where his _feet_ should be. And haunches, and a tail: short, furry and flicking wildly back and forth. In fact there was _hair_ all over his legs, and - and...

The words 'goat boy' flitted into Frank's mind and he had to fight to hold back the panicked giggle welling up in his chest. Ray was mother fucking goat boy; he had fucking horns and everything. And Mikey, God, Mikey was - what the hell _was_ Mikey? As Frank watched, Mikey dragged his shimmering leg up and down through Ray’s fur and purred.

_Jesus christ._ Frank's skin was burning; his head swimming.

What the fuck was he seeing? He crawled forward. This wasn't fucking... fucking _cosplay_. They were actual fucking _hooves_ , and Mikey had actual fucking scales and he was _glowing_. Glowing and rising up from the counter Ray had him sprawled over, as Ray buried his, his fucking, _goat cock_ in Mikey's body. Again and again. _God_.

Mikey kept rising, rising along with the sound of Ray grunting in time with every thrust of his hairy hips and the wet sound of his cock pushing into Mikey.

Mikey was silent now, teeth clamped down hard on his lip. The light from his body kept rising in intensity too as Mikey writhed, his hips kicking, his muscles tightening and releasing with each thrust.

And Frank was aware of the sound of Ray's hooves scrabbling at the floor as he was lifted too, the dark, shiny tips kicking at the concrete as he rose, buried so deep in Mikey, buoyed up by him, it seemed.

Then they were both hovering a few inches above the counter and the floor, and the light from Mikey’s body began to pulse and sharpen, and grow and grow. And Mikey was calling to Ray, calling his name over and over as if he was in pain. Only Ray wasn't hurting him. It wasn't pain.

Frank stood up then, was dragged up and forwards towards them. _Gerard_ he thought, crazily, desperately. _Gerard_. His heart was racing; his breath came in rasped, frantic gasps; his fists were clenched tight. And as the light from Mikey’s body touched him, Frank realised he could feel it, feel what Mikey felt. _Oh, God._

And then Mikey called out, his head thrown back as Ray drove into him, harder and deeper, and there was a blinding flash which Frank felt in every cell of his body.

And then there was nothing.

*

“Is he breathing?”

_Ow_

“What do you mean ‘Is he breathing’?”

Frank’s teeth hurt.

“I mean is air going in and out of him, what the fuck do you think I mean?”

His face hurt, kind of, too.

“Yes, dickhead, he’s breathing.”

He couldn’t see, but much to his relief, that was only because he couldn’t open his eyes. He could hear though, if the muffled-sounding voices going to and fro over him was anything to go by. So that was good.

“We shouldn’t move him.”

_Gerard_. Frank knew that voice. It was Gee. Where the fuck was he? What the hell... oh... _Oh._

“I didn’t hit him with my _car_ , Gee.”

There was silence then, which Frank imagined contained some loud eyebrow shouting between Gerard and the second voice - Mikey.

Frank wiggled his toes in his sneakers, they seemed to be fine. But he was just going to lie here and hopefully hear something that would make sense of whatever the fuck he’d seen.

“Well, if you hit him with the same thing you hit me with, baby, he’s gonna be out for a couple more minutes at least.”

_Ray_ , thought Frank.

"This is him?” Ray said. “The last one?”

“the last one,” Mikey said quietly, and Frank felt someone’s hand brush his hair back from his face gently.

“Christ!” Gee again, sounding exasperated, or frustrated maybe. “This is exactly the kind of screw up we do not need. If he can’t remember on his own then we’re all fucked. No magic, Mikey. Remember? That was the deal.”

“That’s rich, coming from you, Mister ‘Dragons Are Really Lazy.’ Also, could you be any more obvious?”

Gerard made an annoyed sound.

“He knows one thing, you’ve still got a massive boner for him,” Mikey said.

Frank sucked in a gasp, just a tiny one and he felt like he caught it in time.

“Um, guys?”

Frank’s skin went icy. How was he the last? What was he supposed to remember? How were they fucked? Magic? Boner? He tried to calm down a little. The boner thing was pretty interesting, though.

“I think he’s awake,” said Ray.

“Frank?” Mikey said, and Frank felt a hand slide under his neck and squeeze him gently. “Frankie?”

Frank sat up slowly with Mikey supporting his head.

“Where am I?”

Mikey’s face swam into view. He was holding Peppers who yapped as soon as Frank opened his eyes.

_Frank! Frank you’re awake! Love you so much Frank! I was so worried! Want to lick you better, want to heal you Frank!_

“Hey baby girl,” he groaned, touching his head gingerly, and then reaching out for Peppers. Mikey handed her over. His face was pretty grim for Mikey, who was usually much harder to read. “Mikes,” Frank said.

“You okay?” Gerard said, crouching down and reaching out to stroke Peppers. His fingers ran lightly over Frank’s and Frank shivered.

“I-I’m fine,” Frank said, and started to push himself up.

“Don’t stand up too quickly,” Ray said. Frank looked at Ray’s legs. They just looked like legs, the ordinary, non-goat kind. Frank blinked a and looked up in time to see Gerard and Mikey exchanging dark looks.

“I’m fine,” Frank said again and stood. He leaned heavily on the counter behind him and his head swam a little. “I have to go.”

“I’ll give you a lift,” Gerard said.

“No! No, thanks,” Frank said frantically. “I’ll get a cab. Okay. I’m...” He pushed himself away and through the front doors to the street, ignoring the sound of the guys calling to him.

His head was still swimming by the time he made it to the end of the block. Feeling dizzy, he sat in the gutter and put his head between his knees. Peppers curled up next to him, whimpering.

“Okay, honey. Gimme a second and we’ll get a -”

Frank looked up and Gerard’s little green Mini was stopped in front of him, the passenger door wide open.

“I said I’d give you a lift,” Gerard said, leaning over the passenger seat and pushing the door open a little wider.

Before he could stop her, Peppers had jumped up and trotted over the the car and into the tiny back seat. Frank sighed. _Traitor_ he thought, and got up to get in the car.

*

Gerard had been pretty silent for most of the ride, and Frank was kind of grateful. He had no idea what he’d say anyway, ‘So, I thought I saw your brother getting nailed by the head chef, who is also a goat boy. What’s that all about?’

Frank shook his head, he was just not equipped for that conversation.

He realized Gerard was looking at him a few seconds later.

“So, what happened back there?” Gerard said, glancing in his rear view mirror at the two dogs sitting up in the back seat. Raisin, Frank noted, was being a bit more of a gentleman now. Peppers was watching Frank intently, with her big dark eyes.

“Blood sugar,” Frank said, lying a little more easily than he usually could. “Low, yeah, blood and whatnot.” He turned a little in his seat and stared out the window. “It happens sometimes.”

Gerard hmmmed. “You’re feeling okay now?”

“Sure,” Frank said. He had this overwhelming desire to just turn to Gerard and tell him what he saw, but he couldn’t. He didn’t have the words.

They pulled up a few minutes later in front of Frank’s house. The lights were on and Frank was pleased Bob would be there. He needed some normal right now.

“You gonna be okay?” Gerard said, hand tight on the steering wheel.

Frank turned in his seat and reached for Peppers. Raisin was licking her ear and her little eyes were all closed and blissful. Frank stopped and looked back at Gerard.

Their eyes met and Frank felt fixed there, under Gerard’s stare. He heard his breath rasping, felt the heave and pull of the air his chest.

“I’ll be fine,” Frank said after a few seconds and pushed open the car door. He called Peppers and she leaped out of the car. Frank scooped her up and without looking back, he rushed inside.

He raced through the door and then walked to the window, watching Gerard sitting in the car, not leaving, staring up at the house.

Eventually Gerard started the mini and pulled away. Frank felt cold panic, suddenly. He threw open the front door and ran out onto the porch. The tail lights of Gerard’s car disappearing round the corner did nothing to quell the feeling he’d made a terrible mistake.

*

The red haired man walked towards him across the park. His pale, brazen skin was shining in the moon light, and the breeze lifted his hair, blowing the scarlet bangs into his eyes.

“Hello Frankie,” he said, and it sounded like a whisper straight into Frank’s ear, although the man was still so far away.

The closer he got to Frank the further away he seemed and Frank started to get agitated. “Come here!” Frank shouted, but it came out garbled and wrong.

He kept walking forward with that steady swaying gait, at once infuriating and mesmerising. Frank tried moving towards him, but he just got further away.

To Frank's horror the man stopped, raised his hand, and started to turn away.

Frank ran then, scrabbling through the long grass and grabbing weeds and clinging vines - why were there vines? And wet sand sucking at his shoes, and hands reaching up from the dirt, dragging him down. And all the time the man was getting further and further away.

"No!" Frank sat bolt upright in bed in his own room, the clock telling him it was time to get up even though the pitch dark basement always felt like the middle of the night.

The pillow behind him was soaked; so were his sheets. But he knew who he'd been dreaming about for what seemed like forever. He knew who the red haired man was.

Frank dragged himself out of bed, pulling the sodden sheets off after him, and got ready to head to Pan’s.

*

The mountain of unchopped mushrooms stared at Frank, and he stared back at it. He didn't even know where to start. He picked up his chopping knife and started slicing slowly.

Zach had already finished with the red peppers and was moving on to green beans. Frank glanced at him and noticed the way every movement of Zach's hands had a rainbow sparkle lightshow behind it. Frank blinked and Zach's hands went back to normal. He glanced away and back, and the rainbow sparkle returned.

Frank's own hands didn't seem to know which was left and which right today. The mushroom he was slicing crumbled into little pieces and Frank gave up.

He turned to Keenan, who seemed to be throwing glitter on the grill from a little pouch at his hip which sparked and burned with vermilion and magenta flames. Frank sighed. How had he never seen this stuff before?

There was Ray over by the fridges, his little horns plain to see, talking to his beared dragon. There was Ray's bearded dragon, talking back.

Adam floated, literally, into the kitchen to pick up and order.

And Mikey? Mikey was watching Frank from across the room, the light glinting off his delicate scales and opalescent skin.

Frank plastered a smile on his face and concentrated on the mushrooms. This wasn't happening. He was having a psychotic breakdown. That was it. A mild, totally alarming, but in no way outside his own head, psychotic breakdown. And all he had to do was ignore it all and he'd be _fine_.

When the doors to the café opened next, Frank felt a prickling all the way up his spine, like fingers trailing over his skin. His heart kicked in his chest and he turned. _Gerard_.

He was standing by the grill, his tray held up high, a copper bright smile on his burnished face. Colors flowed over him, green and red and white and pale, pale lilac, and his hair was flame red. Brighter than Frank had ever seen it. He lowered the tray, holding it out for the plates Keenan had prepared, and tiny, dimond white stars flowed from the movement of his arm. When he turned slowly towards Frank, billowing rills of stars flowed off his skin. Their eyes locked.

"Frankie," Brandon hissed and sidled up to him. Frank turned to Brandon, and when he glanced back, Gerard was gone.

"It's time for a little prankie!" Brandon said. His skin looked like leaves, papery and thinly veined. The ink on his arms was moving. He showed Frank a realistic looking rubber chicken. Frank nodded and kept on slicing mushrooms, as well as the odd finger.

"Dude, seriously, this thing is magic! You put it in the oven and it starts shooting fire!" Brandon said with hushed urgency. "I double quadruple triple dare you to swap it out for one of Ray's roosters. Go for gold!"

"I got a lot of work to do, Bran, ah Brandon." Frank cut a glance left at Brandon's beetle brown eyes. He tried not to flinch.

"You do, huh?" Brandon said, looking deflated. He shrugged. "I guess I'll see if Zach's keen."

Frank nodded and tried not to wince too visibly when he narrowly missed chopping the end off his finger. Luckily he wasn't bleeding, but he scooped up what he'd been chopping and binned it anyway. This was total bullshit. He couldn't concentrate. He didn't know what the fuck was going on. He brought the knife down hard on a fresh mushroom and sliced deeply into the palm of his hand.

"Motherfucker!" Frank shouted and clamped down on the welling blood.

"You okay, Eyebrows?" Keenan said, clip clopping on his little flame red hooves over to Frank. _Jesus_.

"I'm fucking _fine_ ," Frank hissed. "And my name is Frank, not _Eyebrows_ , not _Littlie_ , not, not fucking _Frankie_. Just..."

He barged past Keenan, into the sanctuary of his store room.

*

He'd retrieved the first aid kit from a box of dried newts, of all things, the first week he'd been in the storeroom. _Newts_. And he hadn’t bothered to ask... never mind. He was pretty glad he'd stored the kit in a more obvious place since then.

His hand wasn't bleeding too badly, but it hurt like a bitch. He wound a little gauze around it, tied it off, and slumped down onto a pile of boxes he'd yet to tackle.

_God_ , what was going on? Why had he even come in today. He felt sick about it. He also felt incredibly sick about leaving Peppers at home. It was like he couldn't do this day right.

He looked down at the boxes beneath him. He'd have to go out an apologize to Keenan eventually. It wasn't his fault. Frank was the one who’d been dreaming about Gerard for months before he’d even met him. Frank was they were waiting for, whatever the hell that meant.

Frank wanted to do something physical and brainless. He stood up and opened one of the boxes. More boxes. Okay. This, Frank could deal with, that was for fucking sure.

*

He didn’t know how long he’d been stacking and ordering the boxes, desperately trying no to think of Gerard, when he felt it - the warmth of someone standing close, just over his shoulder. Frank froze.

"You shouldn't be in here," he said, trying to ignore the heat coiling low in his belly, the way his body flinched and keened at the same time. “I didn’t invite you this time.”

"You called," Gerard said, voice high and light. Because of course, of course it was him. As if Frank could have been in any doubt, the way Frank'd felt as soon as he'd known there was someone else in the storeroom.

"You called and I came," Gerard breathed, stepping closer, right up against Frank, his chest flush with Frank's back, hips pressed against Frank's.

"I didn't..."

But Gerard didn't let him finish. He slipped his arm around Frank's waist and pulled him closer, buried his face in the crook of Frank's neck, breathing deep, taking in his scent.

Frank let his eyes fluttered closed, his arms hanging loose at his sides. _God_. His legs felt weak and a dull pleasure-ache rolled up his arms, into his chest, throbbing down between his legs. He’d been waiting for this, he realized. For Gerard's breath, warm against his tingling skin.

"Smell so good," Gerard breathed. "Coffee and chocolate and, Frankie, missed you... _Frankie_."

Frank felt the words buzz against his throat. He let his head drift back onto Gerard's shoulder and pressed his hands back behind him, clutching Gerard's thighs.

They shouldn't be doing this. Not here, not when - not when Frank was such a mess. _Ensorcelled_ , Gerard had called it. 'Fuzzy headed’ and insane was Frank's term for it.

No, they shouldn't be doing this. Anyone could come in, Adam, or Brandon. God, Brandon could find them, _touching_.

The pleasure-ache sparkled in Frank's gut. He tensed his muscles and relaxed, rolling his head a little as Gerard suckled his neck. Frank's nipples tightened; he pushed out his chest, begging to be touched. _Jesus, fuck._

Gerard pulled back a little and Frank whimpered. The back of his neck was chilled, bare. He reached up and cupped Gerard's head, fingers threading into his hair. He tugged. "C'mere."

Gerard laughed, lips damp and warm right next to Frank's ear. "You like that, Frankie. Like my mouth on you."

Frank moaned and rolled his head, mouth searching for Gerard's. "Kiss," he breathed, because he'd lost his words and only his hind brain knew what Frank wanted. The hand Gerard wasn't using to hold him up played across Frank's chest, massaging and caressing, stroking and pinching. Frank could feel himself starting to get hard, the buzzing, fluttering fullness in his cock demanding his attention.

Then there was Gerard's breath on his dry lips, the soft press of his wet mouth to Frank's, the tip of his tongue slipping between Frank's teeth.

Frank's knees buckled. He whined and Gerard laughed.

"Shhhh, shhhh, Frankie, that’s it. I've got you." His arm tightened around Frank's waist, and he pulled them back a few steps, towards the door. Frank felt Gerard land against it with a light thud, then felt his leg slip between Frank's, helping to keep him upright.

"That's it," Gerard breathed. "So good, Frankie. So good."

His voice. Frank had never heard him like that, desperate and drunk with it; rough and breathy and broken.

Something rolled tight and unfurled beneath Frank's heart. "Gee," he whispered. " _Gee._ "

"Yeah, Frankie. Yeah." Gerard reached down and cupped Frank's cock through his jeans, pressing the heel of his hand in, then reaching down and tugging gently.

"Oh, fuck," Frank groaned.

Gerard massaged Frank's balls through the denim, then slowly slid his hand back to press against the underside of his cock, pushing up, hard in his jeans, again. Back and forwards, cupping and tugging on Frank until it was all Frank could feel, the pleasure-ache, slicing down through his body leaving him weak. Over and over; tugging and squeezing as Frank shuddered and writhed in Gerard's embrace, and tried, hopelessly, to grind down on his thigh.

"You call to me all day," Gerard breathed, and the hand around Frank's waist slid over his stomach, fingers splayed, bright points of heat over Frank's quivering muscles. "The way you move, the way you _look_. Think I can't see? Think I don't hear it?"

"I, I don't..." Frank stammered for the words because he _didn't_ , he didn’t _mean_ to, he didn't know he was doing it.

"Shhhh," Gerard sighed and bit down a little on Frank's throat. "Shhh, I don't want to hear anymore of your lies."

He slid his hand higher, and pinched Frank's nipple. Frank bucked, and Gerard hoisted him back up, higher on the leg he had braced against the door.

"No. More. _Lies_ Frankie," he breathed, and pressed two fingers into Frank's mouth.

Frank couldn't help himself, moaning around Gerard's long, thin fingers, sucking them, laving at the salt-bitter iron taste of his skin. They felt smooth against his tongue, he sucked them hard, biting and pressing his tongue in between them, licking at the smooth curve between them. Gerard pressed them further back into his throat and Frank choked a little.

"Relax, that's it," Gerard breathed. "You can... that's it."

Frank relaxed and took it as Gerard's fingers pushed into him. His mouth watered around them, and his hips twitched.

Gerard trailed his other hand up Frank's fly and slowly tugged it open. He flicked the button open too, pushed his jeans out of the way and slipped his hand under the waistband of Frank's shorts. Gerard’s hand was cold and this was too much, too much. Frank wriggled and grabbed at Gerard's arms, scrabbling at his his biceps and digging in his nails. He pushed at the fingers in his mouth with his tongue, bit them. Pushed at Gerard’s arm, but he he was so strong. So much stronger than Frank.

Gerard hummed soothing sounds. "Uh uh, Frankie, calm down," he whispered. “Shhh. That’s it. Good.”

Frank felt cool-warm fingers on his cock, tight and firm, pulling Frank out of his clothes. Frank tried to look, but Gerard just pressed his fingers further back into Frank's mouth, keeping Frank’s head back against Gerard's shoulder.

"You want me to stop?" he sighed, nuzzling Frank's cheek. "Want me to leave?"

Panic gripped Frank. He struggled again, shaking his head and whining. He sucked hard on Gerard's fingers.

"Okay," said Gerard. He let his fingertips play lightly up Frank's shaft and dance over the head of his cock. He swirled the head in the palm of his hand and trailed his fingers down to the root again. His touch was feather light and nowhere near enough, not even in the same realm as enough. Frank felt the whine start in the back of his throat and his hips kicked forward, and Gerard's fingers slowed, skating almost ticklish over the skin of his cock.

Frank breathed through his nose in deep, frantic bellows. _Please, please_. His thoughts had become a cacophony of panic and lust and aching.

Gerard massaged the little knot of nerves under the head of Frank’s cock – tiny little circles of sensation on Frank’s over-heated flesh -- darting away just as the sensations started to coalesce, just before Frank could latch on to the sensation and ride it home.

_Home_. Frank moaned.

Gerard was relentless. His fingertips skated through the pre-come leaking from Frank’s cockhead. Dragging sharp arcs of sparkling pleasure up and down his cock, twisting and turning and massaging the pleasure-ache deeper and deeper into him. Frank was so sensitized he felt like the ridge of Gerard's fingerprint was as sharp as the scrape of a nail over his heated flesh.

_Please, God._

"Soon, Frankie," Gerard breathed, swirling his fingers as he dragged them from root to tip, over and over again.

Frank felt it rising in him, felt his balls pull up, slowly, achingly, into his body. His hips twitched. He was coming. He groaned and bit down on the fingers stroking his tongue.

"Not yet, Frankie," Gerard said, squeezing the base of Frank's cock between his thumb and forefingers.

Frank screamed, or he would have screamed, if he hadn't been choking on the fingers in his mouth. _Fuck, no._ He sobbed and the tension drained out of his muscles and his orgasm sank back into the pit of his belly.

Gerard’s fingertips skated over him again. And Frank felt tears of frustration slip over his cheeks. Gerard licked at them, humming.

"Good," he sighed. “So good, Frankie.”

On and on it went, Frank rising and being pulled back under. On and on until Frank was nothing but the hand on his cock and the fingers in his mouth. He was a dead-but-twitching weight in Gerard’s arms, he couldn't loosen his fingers from their grip of Gerard’s arms, he couldn't release the sucking vacuum of his mouth.

He couldn't even get the little noises he was making, the little swallowed 'gah, gah, gah’s' in the back of his throat, to stop.

“Now, Frankie,” Gerard whispered, as Frank felt the glory rise up in him again, a spark of light from Gerard’s fingers into his cock, into all his flesh. "Can you see, Frankie? Can you see yet?"

But Frank couldn't see anything, he had trouble even understanding the words. He couldn't open his eyes; his head rolled on his shoulders; his skin tingled and ached.

"Open your eyes, Frankie," Gerard said. "Open them.”

But he couldn't; he didn't want to; he _couldn't_.

"Open them, Frank." Gerard’s words were sharp and loud in the silent room. He pulled his fingers from Frank’s mouth. His hand gripped Frank’s cock hard, jacking him tightly. "Look," he growled. “Fucking _look._ ”

Frank blinked. The light hurt his eyes. Spots danced in his vision. He blinked away the tears, blinked the tendrils of dark light out of his eyes. "Oh God," he screamed.

The room was gone, the walls spreading out for miles in all directions, and there was nothing but wilderness and night-that-was-day and the throbbing, pounding of his flesh, and the stars singing and swirling above his head in time with the song-fire in his flesh. And there was Gerard, warm and tight and so, so warm around him.

Frank came in long hard jerks of pleasure that lanced through him, as his come arced out of his body.

"Do you see?" Gerard hissed, his voice hot and close. "Do you see, Frankie?"

Frank felt himself lift out of his body, and then felt himself slam back into himself hard. The world righted itself. The stars were silent. Four walls, shelves, sacks of flour and Gerard’s arms around him and the sound of them both breathing, heavy and hard in the oaty-clean scented store room.

Frank shuddered and shivered and shook. "I see," he sobbed. "I see."

*

Afterwards, dark and quiet was what Frank needed. The best place to get dark quiet was in a basement. They’d lain together on the floor of the store room for a long time. Quiet and wrapped in each other. But now Frank needed to be alone.

Gerard had driven him home and walked him to his door. Frank could tell he’d wanted to come inside too, but Frank needed silence to understand what he’d seen, what he’d felt.

On the way over, Gerard had been quiet, but the other thing Frank could tell was that Gerard was impatient. Frank didn’t know what for, not after what he’d already given him. Whatever it was, Frank couldn’t deal with that right now.

“I don’t want to - I need some time,” Frank had said, before Gerard could speak. They’d stayed there, clutching each other, panting in the store room. And Frank had felt it when Gerad retreated, like blood being pulled from his vein.

And now, at the door to Bob’s house, Gerard caught Frank’s face in his cupped hands and pressed a chaste kiss to his lips. “Come back to Pan’s when you’re ready, Frankie,” he said, and kissed Frank again, deeper, firmer – a kiss full of questions and the promise of answers. Frank slid his arms around Gerard’s waist and twisted his hands in the fabric of his shirt. “Come back and I’ll tell you everything.”

After a second Gerard pulled back. He looked at the front door, and back down at Frank. “You’d better get inside,” he said, his voice a hushed breath against Frank’s lips. “If you’re going.”

Frank shivered and untangled himself from Gerard. “I’ll – I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, and slipped inside.

Frank pressed his back to the closed door and took a couple of deep breaths. He still felt so weak, so shakey. He didn’t hear Gerard’s feet on the porch or the sound of his car starting, but when Frank turned a few seconds later and looked out the window, they were both gone.

“Bob?”

Frank sat down gingerly on the couch – his skin was still so sensitive, his vision was still swimming. Bob didn’t seem to notice Frank’s arrival; he was engrossed in blasting a bunker somewhere in the game. His face was fierce, but at the sound of his name he paused the game and shifted round in his seat.

“Holy fuck, Iero. Someone rough you up on the way home?”

Frank snorted. He had no idea what he looked like, but he could feel the hot flush still in his cheeks, and he figured his hair hadn’t come out of the store room the same way it had gone in. He reached up and smoothed it down.

He noticed his arms then. The ink was swirling - stars and words and signs bursting out and realigning and sinking back into his skin. Frank pressed closed his eyes.

“I need to tell you something,” Frank said.

Bob nodded and put the controller down.

“I think I’m having a mental break down,” Frank sighed, even though he knew, knew that wasn’t what was happening.

Bob took a deep breath. “Wait,” he said, standing. “I’m getting Peppers.”

He disappeared and few seconds later Frank heard the sound of Peppers’ little claws tearing up the steps from the basement. She flew into the room, and into Frank’s lap, yipping, and yapping and...

_Oh Frank! You’re home! I Missed you. Don’t go away again! I missed you so much; you’re home! I’m really hungry. Feed me? You’re home!_ Peppers said.

“Bob,” Frank winced. Because that wasn’t Bob speaking.

“I told you; she’s your dog,” Bob said, standing in the doorway, hands on his hips.

_I waited for you all day today, Frank. And then Bob came home! I’m really hungry. Is it dinner time? It’s definitely dinner time. I missed you. Did you miss me? Rub my tummy. I love you!_

“Bob, Peppers is talking to me,” Frank said, looking up at his friend. “I think I need a doctor.”

_Are you sick, Frank?_ Peppers said, and sat staring at him, still on high alert, her little tail thumping.

Frank blinked. “I’m not...” Frank started to reply to Peppers, but stopped himself and turned to Bob, desperate for some kind of answer. Preferably one that didn’t include the words ‘Oh, didn’t you get the memo? Animals talk now. Roll with it.’. “Bob? What the fuck?”

“It’s okay, Frankie,” Bob said, sitting down on the couch again. He scratched behind Peppers’ ears and she sighed.

“You know my dad was Irish?” Bob said finally, and scooped Peppers’ out of Frank’s arms. “And like, he had a bunch of crazy assed stories from back there, as you would, about the police and the troubles and bombs in his back fucking yard. But he had other stories too,” Bob fixed Frank with a stare.

“About?” Frank choked out.

“Faeries,” Bob said, without a flicker of humour.

“Fairies?”

Bob shook his head. “Faeries, there’s a difference.”

Frank realised he was wringing his hands, trying to stop the ink on them from moving. He put his palms flat in his lap.

“They’re - they’re different in Ireland. Not little fluffy things with wings and shit. My old man, he was genuinely scared of them. Respectful, you know? And that’s how he brought me up. And that’s why you’re always welcome in my house, Frank. Always.”

Frank shook his head. This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t.

Bob put his big paw on Frank’s shoulder and squeezed. “At first I was just waiting for you to tell me, or, I dunno, _show_ me or something. But then after you moved in, I knew there was something wrong.”

Frank shook his head. “What the fuck are you _talking about_ ,” Frank said, dropping his head into his hands and groaning.

“I’m talking about you, a fucking, fucking Faerie, stuck in Chicago with no clue who you are!” Bob said, raising his voice and throwing up both hands. “I’ve been freaking out about it for fucking months. Waiting for you to snap and fucking curse me or some shit.” Bob stood up again and stalked over to the book shelf by the TV. He pulled down a big, grey leather bound book.

“All the books in this house, and you never looked at this one. Not once.” He held it out to Frank.

The words on the spine were all twisted and strange and full of too many consonants to be English. They were like the words above the door of the City Library. _Gaelic._

When Frank didn’t take the book, Bob opened it. “Look,” he said and pointed at the page.

There was a picture of a wood, dark and eerie, with tall gnarled trees in a half circle. And in the middle were Adam, Zach and Frank, rolling and playing in a mound of nut brown fallen leaves. Only they couldn’t really be Adam, Zach and Frank, because the book looked like it was a five thousand years old - well, a hundred or so, at least.

Only, there they were, three little, dark, painted men, peering out from the leaves.

“That’s not me,” Frank said.

“Frank,” Bob said, and he turned the page.

Frank had never had a portrait done, but if he had, he’d have been glad if it turned out like the one on the page in front of him. It had the weird arch of his eyebrows, and muddy hazel of his eyes, and even the little holes in his ears where he’d worn spacers. It was Frank, right down to the curling tail of the scorpion tattoo on his neck.

“This book was my grandma’s, and then my dad’s,” Bob said. “I’ve had this book for as long as I can remember. I knew who you were the day you walked into the Lobster Shack, Frankie. You’re one of _them_.”

Frank felt the hot warmth rolling down his cheeks. He was crying. He looked up at Bob and shook his head. “No,” Frank whimpered. No. I’m not. I’m not. I’m a real person. Just like you. I’m a - I’m a...”

Bob’s jaw went tight and he breathed deep through his nose. “When you said about Pan’s, and like, when Peppers was so attached -” Bob turned the page and there was Frank with a little dark brown dog, and again on the next page with a big old boxer. “I knew you had to leave here. Leave my place...”

“So you g-gave me the jacket,” Frank stammered, and sniffed back a couple of tears. “To set me free.”

“You’re always welcome here. Always. But, I can’t _keep_ you here.” He waved his arm about. “You gotta go... cavort or some shit. I dunno what you guys do these days, but you gotta go do it. With them.”

He turned the last page and there was a bonfire, tall as the trees and raging, and round it were rings of little guys, a lot like Frankie, dancing and leaping and, yeah, cavorting.

“I don’t know why you’re here, in Chicago, I mean. But I know one thing. You’re not gonna get the answers from me. You’ve got to go back,” Bob said.

“To Pan’s, ” Frank said and wiped his eyes on the back of his hand.

*

All the lights were on when he and Peppers arrived at the little alleyway off Mornington Crescent.

Frank’s heart sank. He didn’t want to go in there. He didn’t want to see them all, and have them know that he knew, that he was a freak, like them.

He thought about running. Taking Peppers and just leaving. He could try Boston, or New York, or... but the thought of never seeing Gerard again... made his stomach ache.

Something welled up in him then, a protest. He’d seen them, Zach and Adam; seen them doing some sort of kitchen version of cavorting. He’d seen Mikey and Ray, felt Gerard, seen the stars. He’d seen the inked bats flying around on his own skin. None of them were _normal._ But whatever they were, it wasn’t freakish. It was something really weird, and really beautiful.

_It’s okay, Frank,_ Peppers said. _They’re our friends. They’ll know what to do._

“You think so, kid?” Frank asked, looking down at her. She yapped.

“Okay,” he said, and pushed open the back door into the dark kitchen.

Inside he heard the murmur of voices, lots of voices, from the café.

Frank took a deep breath and pushed open that door too. The room beyond went silent.

Adam, Zach and Brandon were sitting cross legged on a table near the center of the room. Next to them stood Keenan, his little ferret drapped over his shoulders. Mikey stood with Ray across from them holding Dewees, the Burmese cat. There were several other waiters and dish hands there too. There were regulars, and other staff Frank barely knew. And in the middle of them all, standing on the biggest table in the café with his hands on his hips and his feet spread wide, was Pete.

“You’re late, Frankie,” he said with a wink. “I might have to dock your pay.”

Frank stared. “Pete? What the...”

“Frankie,” Gerard said, coming across the café to him immediately. “Frankie -”

“It’s okay, Gerard, “ Frank said, his eyes still on Pete. He turned slowly, to Gerard. “I know what I am now.” Frank swallowed. “Why didn’t you tell me?” It was all Frank wanted to know. Because _they_ must have known, mustn’t they? Why hadn’t anyone said?

“I - we...” Gerard reached for him and Frank felt that familiar tingle on his skin. He’d thought it was something special, just for him and Gerard. But it wasn’t, it was something else.

“What is that? When we touch, what is it?”

“It’s magic, Frank,” Pete said, leaping gracefully down from the table and walking over to them. He put his hand on Frank’s arm and the tingles zinged all over Frank’s body.

“We’re all enchanted,” Gerard said. “All of us. It’s...” He looked at Pete, who nodded. Gerard took a deep breath. “It’s why we’re here, at Pan’s.”

“Bewitched, ensnared, ensourcelled,” Pete said. “Oh, and I’m Pan, by the way. You got that, right?”

Frank rolled his eyes. “Jesus.”

“Okay, okay,” said Pete, holding up his hands. “Some of the other guys were a bit dense and didn’t get it the first time.”

“Hey!” Brandon said. Pete flashed him a huge smile.

“You mean, like, you’re _all_ literally like me?” Frank said, taking in the room and all the dear, beloved faces watching him.

“Well, we knew we were different, Frankie,” Gerard said. “We just didn’t, you know, know _how_ different.”

“But then Pan came. And we remembered,” Mikey said, walking over to them with Ray in tow, their hands locked. “Like you remember. You can remember, right Frankie?”

“Remember what?” Frank blinked. “I don’t remember anything.” It was really true. He couldn’t remember anything past a year ago. Not his family, or his home in New Jersey, neither of which were real, he realized; they never had been. He couldn’t remember the name of his high school or who his first crush was. Because they weren’t real. It was as if he hadn’t existed before the last 12 months.

Mikey bit his lip.

“Fuck,” Gerard said. “I fucking... fuck it.” He squeezed Frank’s hand, he turned to Pete. “Pan?”

Pete chewed his lip. “I’m not gonna say I told you so, Gee, but man, I frikken told you so. Sex magic is still magic. And the rules were...”

“NO MAGIC,” the whole room chorused. Gerard pressed closed his eyes.

“Wait , that was...” Frank lowered his voice, pitching it at Gerard and away from Pete whose ears were practically waggling. “That was magic, what we did?”

Gerard winced. “Frankie, I’m so sorry.”

Pete leaned in and touched his elbow. Frank flinched, but Pete didn’t move back. “Have you ever been homesick, Frankie?”

Frank rolled his eyes. “Can’t you just - does there have to be a story? Can’t you just tell me what the fuck is going on?”

Pete grinned. “There’s always a _story_ Frankie. Answer the question.”

Frank nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been homesick,” Frank said, finally and tugged on Gerard’s sleeve. Gerard pulled him close and wound his arm around Frank’s waist. Frank felt safe there, like that.

“You know that sensation?” Pete continued, leaping up on to another of the tables. “The tug just behind your breast bone, pulling you, calling you?”

Frank nodded. He did know that. It had gone away a little when he was at Bob’s.

“You can feel it right now, can’t you?” Gerard put his hand in the center of Frank’s chest, and Frank closed his eyes.

“Yeah,” Frank sighed. “I, yeah...”

“Well, we all feel that,” Pete said, leaping from table to table. “Only, none of us can do shit about it.”

“None of us can go home,” Ray said and he exchanged a look with Mikey.

“Because you forgot who you are,” Mikey said.

“Because we all forgot,” Gerard corrected quickly. “And... you’re the last.”

Pete skipped over the backs of some chairs, down to the floor in front of Frank again. “Pan's is a halfway house for the lost, for what's left of us, trapped here, when we forgot.”

Frank’s heart sank. Pan’s was just some, some _holding cell_. “That’s ridiculous,” he hissed. “I’m not - Pan’s is amazing. It’s, it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“It is, Frankie, it is,” Gerard said, rubbing Frank’s shoulders. “But it's not supposed to be like this. It's a conduit, not a refugee camp. You _need_ to remember so we can come and go as we please.”

Frank looked up at Gerard, he didn’t know what else to say. “But I’m no-one. I don't remember anything,” he hissed. “Besides, I’m _happy how things are._ I don’t want to go anywhere.”

Gerard chewed his lip. “You know one thing about enchantments, Frankie? It’s a _bad_ sign when you’re happy.”

As if on cue a roar shook the building, setting the animals into a frenzy of cawing, and yowling and yapping and hissing.

“What the fuck was that?” Frank said, pulling away from Gerard and rushing to the café window.

“That?” said Pete, scowling. “Is the consequence of not playing by the rules.”

Mikey sighed and rubbed his eye. “And the rules were no magic, so now we're screwed because Gerard had to go sex magic you into seeing the wall between the worlds.” Mikey turned to Gerard. “Why can’t you keep it in your pants?”

Gerard held out his hands. “I didn’t... I couldn’t...” He put his hands on his hips and scowled. “He _called_ to me, Mikes. Like, over and over. _In his domain._ How much longer could I go on like that? How?”

Frank turned away from that conversation and pressed his hands to the glass. He didn’t know how to process what Gerard was saying; that’d maybe, somehow _he’d_ caused all _this_. Out the window, the proof was like a punch to Frank’s guts. They weren’t on Mornington Crescent anymore. Or maybe Mornington Cresent was gone? Frank didn’t know, but there were trees and a wild wood as far as he could see, which wasn’t far on account of the trees and wild wood pressing in against the goddamn glass.

“You said you’d tell me everything, Gee,” Frank said and Gerard, Mikey and Ray crowded around him to look out the window.

Pete landed on the window sill next to Frank. “To break the enchantment you had to do three things before midsummer's eve,” he said. “One was befriend a god.” Frank startled and looked up at him. Pete waved. “Hi! How are you?”

Frank shook his head. _Fuck_.

Mikey stood shoulder to shoulder with Frank. “The second was to find your familiar,” he said, glancing back into café. Peppers yapped.

“And the third, and perhaps most important...” Gerard said, stammering to a halt.

Frank looked up at him. Outside the window the trees shuddered. “What, Gee? What was the most important?” Frank asked.

“The third was to remember, unaided, who you were.”

The roar shook the glass in the window pane and made them all take a step back.

*

Frank was sitting in a chair with his head in his hands. “So can I go over this one more time? I’m, I’m thousands of years old, from another world and now, because my magical elf boyfriend sexed me up, I have to defeat a fucking Dragon.”

Suddenly the reason trauma victims and other disturbed people rock back and forth became achingly clear to him. Frank rocked a little harder. It was soothing.

“I can’t believe you didn't tell him about the dragon,” Mikey said not even looking at his brother. The taut line of his back spoke volumes.

“What was I supposed to say, Mikey? ‘You’re an ancient woodland spirit, the love of my life and potential saviour of the mystical world! Oh and by the way, you’re next in line to slay the mighty Golgorath!’ Because, to be honest, the opportunity never really came up.”

Mikey cold eyed Gerard. Gerard threw up his hands.

“I have to slay it?” Frank squeaked. “I’m - I’m a vegetarian, for fuck’s sake. I can’t _slay_ anything!”

A roar shook the panels of the walls. Mikey sighed. “Frankie, think of it as self defense.”

“Oh my god,” Frank groaned.

After telling him he was going to face his worst nightmare, Pete had taken a few of the staff off to see to the defenses and to start helping the Faerie refugees, arriving in dribs and drabs.

It seemed that, with Frank still not able to remember, the wall between the worlds was crumbling, and not in a good, ‘welcome home!’ kind of way. If the wall fell, so did they all. Fae were coming to the café from all over the city. It was the safest place they knew.

“It’s almost Midsummer, Frank,” Pete had said. And Frank didn’t know what that meant, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t good.

Frank didn’t want to go outside and face whatever the hell that thing was. He didn’t want to be whatever the hell he was. He just wanted to go back to the part where he’d figured out that Gerard liked him, and he liked Gerard and there was finally kitchen-fu, and everything was awesome.

“Frankie?” Gerard was standing by the kitchen doors, his hand out towards him. Frank couldn’t seem to stop himself from rising and going to him. “You need to come with me,” Gerard said, taking his hand.

He led him to the storeroom, but Frank pulled back. “I- I don’t want...”

“It’s okay, Frankie,” Gerard said, opening the door. “It’ll be okay.”

It wasn’t the same room he’d left the night before. Or it was, only now there was so much more of it.

“Holy fuck,” Frank breathed. “It’s like the fucking TARDIS or some shit.”

Gerard laughed uneasily. “Sort of. I guess.”

The walls of the storeroom stretched away into dark recesses. Nearest Frank it was an ordinary pantry, with jars and cans and boxes of food, but the further away the shelves stretched, the more bizzarre the contents of them became. Tin cans gave way to steel lances, opaque jars to burnished breast plates. “This is _our_ storeroom. Everything we ever need is here.”

“How?” Frank spun around. “Was this always here?” Frank asked. “How did I never see any of this before?” He picked up a small jeweled dagger which glinted and started to glow.

Gerard plucked it from Frank’s fingers, putting it gingerly back on the shelf. He cupped Frank’s face in his hands and smoothed his thumbs over his cheeks. “We don't see the things we don't want to see,” he said, and pressed a kiss to the corner of Frank’s mouth. “Now, take off your pants.”

*

“This is fucking ridiculous.” Frank staggered under the weight of the armour on his back and front, the dull edges of his ill-fitting breast plate digging into his sides and the narrow neck almost choking him.

“I look like I’m gate crashing a Ren Faire, not saving the mother fucking _world_.”

Gerard pulled the leather strap on his shoulder tighter and handed him his gauntlets.

“You look great,” Gerard said.

“I can’t see,” Frank said as the tinny sound of his voice ricocheted around inside the too large helm.

Gerard lifted up the visor and peered in. “What? I can’t really hear you that well out here.”

“Oh for fuck’s -” The visor closed on Frank’s retort. He reached up, slowly - those vambrace things were fucking heavy - and pushed up the visor himself.

“I said, this is fucking ridiculous. I can hardly move; I can’t fucking see. I mean, I might be wrong, but I’m fairly sure you have to be able to _see_ to defeat things, right?”

Frank felt Gerard futzing around with the strap under his chin keeping the helm on, followed by the unique joy of having 20 pounds of Faerie steel lifted off his head.

“Thank you,” he said, and glared at Gerard. Gerard stared. He pressed himself closer to Frank, slipping his fingers inside the chain mail of the coif covering Frank’s head and pushing it back.

“You - You used to do this all the time,” he said, smoothing his thumb over Frank’s brow and down to his cheek. He smiled. “You were like, like the king of the dragon slayers.” He turned away and started fiddling with a scabbard and sword on the shelf next to him.

Frank felt a surge of relief, which was quickly washed away by cold hard reason. He pointed at Gerard, who cut him a quick, sheepish look from the corner of his eye. “I so wasn't, was I?” Frank hissed with narrow eyes.

Gerard had the good grace to look embarrassed. “No? But...”

“Oh my God,” Frank groaned again. “Oh my fucking God.”

Gerard wrung his hands, patted Frank’s armour, and wrung his hands again.

“It’s not so hard,” Gerard said. “You know. It’s like I said that day when we were playing B&A. They’re really lazy. It probably wont want to fight you.”

The building shook all around them, the air clamoring with the sound of the Dragon’s roar.

Frank gave Gerard a look that he hoped very clearly said ‘What The Fuck?’

Gerard picked up the scabbard and fastened it around Frank’s waist. “You’re not going alone, Frankie.”

The storeroom door opened and Pete stuck his head in the door.

“It’s time, Frankie,” he said with a huge grin. “The Dragon's here. In the city. If we don't hurry, Norms will start seeing it and then we're all fucked.”

“What’s a Norm?” Frank hissed out the corner of his mouth.

“Non-Fae, humans,” Gerard hissed back.

“Fuck,” Frank breathed.

Frank started for the doorway but felt the weight of Gerard’s hand tugging him back.

“I should have told you. And now it’s too late. I should have...” He stopped and swallowed. “You have to survive, Frankie,” Gerard said. His voice was barely a whisper. “You have to come back. To me. You _have_ to remember.”

His fingers were white with clinging so hard to Frank’s armour. Frank wanted to feel it. Wanted to feel the bruises forming under Gerard’s hands as he clung to Frank.

“I’m scared,” Frank said, but even as he said it, looking into Gerard’s eyes, he felt it a little less. He shook the gauntlets off his hands and took Gerard’s hand in his.

“Me too,” Gerard said. Frank blanched, but Gerard shook his head. “No, no, I believe in you. I just... I’m scared you still won’t know me when you come back.”

“I - I know you, Gee,” Frank whispered. “I know you.”

Gerard ran the back of his hand down Frank’s cheek. His smile was sad.

Frank turned his face into the caress. He kissed Gerard’s palm. “I can’t believe that me not remembering could destroy everything,” he hung his head.

Gerard frowned. “Because you're _you_ , Frankie,” Gerard said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “When you're not you everything goes to shit.” Gerard kissed him, soft and sweet. And Frank could feel, everywhere, that he meant it.

*

Everything seemed to happen so fast after that. There were bows and arrows and lances handed out. Frank saw Mikey sharpening a sword and Ray struggling his way into a chain mail shirt. And then Mikey admiring Ray in the chain mail. Which, yeah, Frank had to admit, hung from Ray’s broad shoulders, fitting snugly over his big arms, a dang sight better than it did from Frank’s. _As if he was born to wear it._ Frank thought desperately. He jammed his ill fitting visor back further. _Fuck._

And then Pete was pulling Frank out the door with Peppers close on his heels. He’d had only a second to look for Gerard, lock eyes with him, and then he was gone, pulled along by Pete, through the wild wood.

*

At the edge of the wood was the Library park.

The park was gone, of course, replaced by a rambling chaos of trees and vines.

“This wood is old,” Pete said, leaping up onto a fallen log. “Full of memory.”

Frank un hooked the stupid visor and chucked it aside. “Please tell me you’re not quoting Lord of the Rings.”

Pete cackled. “Snap! Dude, I fucking love those films. That Legolas, man, if only Elves really looked like that”

“Christ on a mother fucking stick, Pete! Can you take this a little more seriously?” Frank snapped. “I’m about to get roasted to death by fucking Godzilla.” Frank lent against a tree trunk. The armour was really heavy and Frank was really, really fucking ticked off.

Pete leaped lightly down from the log and undid Frank’s helm. He lifted it off Frank’s head and threw it to one side.

“I am taking this seriously, Frankie. This is as serious as I ever get.” He grinned. “I’m a _trickster god_. I can’t show you how I really feel. That’d give the game away.”

Frank slumped. Peppers whined and put a paw on top of his foot. Frank leaned down and stroked her head. She turned to Pete.

_Not far now, right Pan?_

“No,” Pete said to the chihuahua. “Not far, Princess.”

“Okay,” Frank said, hauling himself up again. “Okay.” And the three of them ran on towards the roar of the Dragon.

As they broke through into a clearing, Frank felt the wind kick up. A storm was brewing, blotting out the sunlight, and the air was heady with ions. Ahead, the Library loomed, it’s crenelations and spires piercing the iron sky. The gargoyles screeched and clawed the air, and wan lights flickered in the windows. The great iron studded doors stood wide open.

“That’s the gateway!” Pete called, the wind whipping away his voice. “The door to Faerie! You need to close it before Midsummer.”

Well, Frank knew how to close a door. That he could do.

What Frank didn’t know how to do was destroy the 20 foot tall, black scaled, flame snorting, red toothed _thing_ standing between himself and it.

The beast lifted it’s craggy head and belched fire in an angry arc across the sky.

Frank pulled his sword from the scabbard at his hip. He looked at it, and then back up at the Dragon.

“I’m gonna need a bigger sword,” Frank said, swallowing tightly.

“No you don’t. You can do it, you just have to believe!” Pete shouted into the wind. “Oh, no wait, that's the other thing. Fuck. I don't know. Throw something at it!”

The creature saw them then. It lumbered down from the portico of the Library towards them.

Frank shook off one gauntlet and threw it. It bounded off the dragon’s hide and landed at Pete’s feet.

Frank looked at Pete; Pete shrugged. “It was worth a shot!”

Frank took a deep breath and ran forward. He could hear Peppers yapping and snarling, and through a tiny slit in the visor he saw her darting in and worrying at one of the Dragon’s massive talons.

Frank yelled and dashed after her, but was forced back by an arc of fire from the beast’s massive nostrils. “No!” Frank screamed as Peppers disappeared behind a wall of flame.

The beast didn’t even see her, but as it took a step closer to Frank, it flicked Peppers aside like swatting a gnat. Her little golden body tumbled in the air and landed in a crumpled heap. She didn’t move.

Frank ran to her, and Pete tried to distract the Dragon, leaping in the air and calling it names.

Frank ran a gentle hand over her and she whimpered. He couldn’t feel any breaks. “Thank fuck,” he hissed. “Baby girl, can you hear me?”

_He’s bigger than he looks._ Peppers sighed, and passed out.

Frank dragged himself back to his feet. This was fucking ridiculous. He started hauling off the armour.

He didn’t know who he had been, he didn’t know who he was going to be at the end of this. But he knew who he fucking was right now. And it was not Prince fucking Valiant or who the fuck ever.

He threw the armour to one side and shrugged off the chain mail vest. Underneath he still had on his jeans and Bob’s denim jacket, that’d have to do for protection. He kept the chain coif on, coz secretly he thought it was kind of bad-ass. But everything else had to go.

Pete landed next to him. “Take her!” Frank yelled, handing Peppers’ to him.. Pete picked her up and made for the edge of the Forest. “Okay,” Frank said to himself, adjusting his grip on the sword. “Lets show this fucker who’s boss.”

Frank turned and faced the beast.

He ran forward, darting in behind its lumbering tail and dodging the grabbing claws. Nipping in beneath it’s wing he hacked at the back of its leg. The sword bounced off the scales uselessly and Frank was thrown back, into the Beast’s reach.

He felt its claws close around him, and he was lifted into the air even as the air was crushed out of him.

He rained blows down onto the thing’s talon but it made no difference. It held Frank up to it’s great, red eye. Which, when Frank thought about it, was kind of a rookie mistake.

He threw back his arm and stabbed at the eye with his sword.

The creature screamed - which didn’t make Frank feel all that good. The Dragon hadn’t started this fight and now Frank had just hauled off and blinded it. He was seriously the worst vegetarian ever.

He felt really sorry for it, right up until it dropped him from 20 feet up, and Frank landed in a heap on the stone steps.

“Gah!” Frank had seconds to roll out of the way of a plume of flame snorted straight at him.

“Oh fuck you, dragon breath,” Frank yelled, but the wind whipped his voice away.

The Dragon reared back and Frank could tell it was about to let loose another plume when its shoulder flinched, like it’d been stung.

Frank looked around and at the edge of the clearing was Mikey - who definitely did the Prince Valiant thing proud - firing on the Dragon with a bow and Ray next to him, twirling what looked like a sling shot above his head, his chain mail glittering in the flash of the fire.

Frank staggered to his feet and ran for the trees.

The wind grabbed and pushed at him, and there was a horrible tearing noise. Frank looked behind him to see his own shadow being ripped away.

From the edge of the trees, Pete sprang forward and grabbed it, dragging it back by it’s heel. He rolled it up and tucked it into Frank’s pocket. Frank’s heart hammered in his chest.

“You should get that sewn back on as soon as you can.” He leaned in close and whispered, “If you survive and all. Sorry.” Pete made an apologetic face and shrugged.

Frank rolled his eyes. “Fuck,” he shouted.

“Frank!” Frank turned and saw Mikey darting towards them, head down as he forced his way into the gale.

The Dragon growled when it saw Mikey, and reared up. Its breath was hot and fierce and stank of roasted flesh. It was terrible to behold, and Frank felt his fear rise up in him like a wave of white cold ice.

Frank turned to Mikey and shook his head. “I can’t do it,” he said, and Mikey just frowned back at him.

“Hold on Frankie,” he shouted, his voice barely louder than the wind. “Gee is coming.”

The Dragon lumbered forward again, snapping its great red maw at them, belching huge plumes of ash and smoke into the air. Frank held up his sword, but it was no use.

The Dragon unfurled its mighty wings and flapped them against the air, Frank stumbled back. It roared a column of fire. But before it could lurch forwards and attack, it fell back.

“That’s right, asshole,” a voice behind Frank said, louder than the wind, and a million times more dear. “Back the fuck up.”

Frank turned and Gerard was there. On a horse. And in tights. Firing arrow after arrow into the Dragon’s hide.

“Where the fuck did you get a horse?!” Frank cried.

“He’s a Sylph, Frank,” Pan said, picking Frank up and dusting him off, as if that was some kind of explanation. Gerard galloped past them, and Pete stood back, clapping.

Frank blinked. Gerard was born for chain mail and heraldic tunics too, it seemed. As he parried the Dragon’s attacks, dodging and weaving, firing on the beast the whole time, he seemed greater somehow, taller and more noble.

“Wow... he, um... really suits the whole knight in shining armour thing.” Frank stammered.

“Well,” Mikey said, raising his own bow and knocking an arrow into it. “He is the leader of the Wild Hunt. And, I don't know if you noticed, but he's kind of a show-off.” He loosed his shot, and it lanced the Dragon’s neck.

Gerard rode forward, too close for arrows, which he threw the bow aside, and drew his sword.

He swiped the creature’s tail and it reared back again.

“Dude,” Mikey yelled at Frank. “This elf shot’s doing nothing to slow the Dragon down. You have to do something. That thing is gonna kill Gee!”

Mikey was right about the arrows; the beast brushed them off as if they were splinters. But Frank didn’t know what to do. He still couldn’t remember anything from his life before.

“You’re not _thinking_ , Frank,” Mikey said, dropping his bow and grabbing Frank’s arm. “You’re not thinking _Faerie_.”

Frank shook his head. The image of himself from Bob’s book came to his mind. Fanciful names danced in his head.

Frank turned and saw Gerard duck as the Dragon’s tail failed towards him.

“You can save him,” Mikey said. “You _know_ how.”

Ray, fresh from throwing stones and clods of dirt at the beast, nudged Frank’s shoulder with his own. “You do know how,” he grinned. “You were _made_ knowing how.”

And Frank looked at Mikey. Looked right at him. Mikey was a Sylph. Like Gerard, who was still fighting the Dragon. And Brandon and Adam and Zach, they were Brownies. Ray was a Faun, and Pete, was _Pan_ , the God of the woods. But what was Frank? What the fuck _was_ Frank.

The Dragon reared up, twisted and swung its tail at Gerard again.

“I’m...” Frank staggered forward, clutching Mikey.

Mikey squeezed his arm. Frank looked into his eyes. Mikey nodded back.

“I’m a...” A word appeared in the air before Frank’s eyes, or maybe in his mind, or rising up from dark recess of his memory, or whatever. But it was a word, a name, a _weapon_.

Frank let go of Mikey and ran forward. “Gerard! I know how to defeat it!”

Gerard pulled his mount up hard and turned back at Frank and didn’t see the tail coming again. It collected him, knocking him from the horse and sending him crashing down onto the steps, far heavier than Peppers or Frank had landed. He didn’t move.

“No!” Frank screamed and sprinted, but Mikey grabbed him round the waist, hauling him back.

“Frank you can’t... you can’t help him. Not like that,” Mikey yelled.

“Gee!” Frank cried and struggled in Mikey’s grip.

_Please Frank,_ Peppers yapped from the safety of the trees. _Please._

“Oh God.” Frank tore his eyes away from Gerard’s crumpled form, back to the Dragon.

“I am going to fucking destroy you,” he cried. “Imma make you into fuckin’ _shoes_ and fucking, a fucking belt!”

“That’s it,” Mikey said. “Tell him why!”

“Because I...”

“Go on,” yelled Ray..

“I am...”

And the wind roared and the mother fucking Dragon roared, and Frank thought maybe even Pete roared too. Above him a chink in the clouds appeared, and lance of sunlight fell across the steps of the Library. And something shifted in Frank. He breathed deep.

_Say it, Frank._

“I will defeat you because I am... _Puck_ , mother fucker,” he hollered, and the clouds rolled back, and the wind blew. “I am Puck. And you do not _fuck_ with Puck.”

“Oh, thank Christ,” Mikey said, grabbing his hand and running towards the beast. “Your heart name and your favourite threat. That’s like double brownie points in the memory stakes. Finish him!”

The Dragon staggered back at the sound of Frank’s name as if some almight fist had socked it, right in its pointy ear. It unfurled its mighty black wings and screamed. Ray, Mikey and Frank all rushed at it with swords drawn. Chinks began showing in its scaly hide, and it seemed to shrink in on itself.

Ray drove into its hind leg with his pike, and it crumpled enough for Mikey to leap up and stick the beast in the side with his sword. While it screeched and bellowed, Frank leaped up and brought the keen edge of his blade down slicing clean through the Dragon’s neck.

Frank fell to the ground in a disgusting shower of feotid, black blood. The Dragon’s dying body writhed, pitifully, and slumped down the Library steps. It’s head rolling out into the clearing. After long, loud seconds all was still.

Frank flung the sword aside and and ran to Gerard. “Gee, God! Gee!” Frank cried, crashing to his knees at Gerard’s side.

Mikey joined him, and Ray stood a few steps down. Pete landed on the steps next to Frank and gently put Peppers on the ground beside him.

_Oh no,_ she cried, and licked tenderly at Gerard’s hand.

“Pan!” Mikey called. “Is he...”

Pete shook his head. “He’s alive. But only just.”

“But... I killed it, the Dragon,” Frank said desperately. “That fixes everything, doesn’t it?”

Pete stood back and stroked his chin. “Well, yeah, I mean. That was the deal.” He shrugged. “But I guess, Gee screwed up.” He sighed. “That’s the problem with enchantments. If they can’t screw you one way, they’ll screw you another.”

“Enchantments...” MIkey said, his eyes fixed on Gerard. “Pan, you don’t think...” He looked at Pete.

Pete looked back and forth between the three of them. “Well, shit,” he said, with glee. “It can’t hurt!”

“What?!” Frank cried, grabbing Mikey’s hand. “What can’t hurt?”

Mikey smiled. “You remember, right? Now you do? Everything?”

Frank stared at Mikey. He had a clear picture in his mind of the tree where he was born. His mother smiling at him. Titania. Oberon. The clearing in the woods where the bonfire was built, where he first saw Gee. A man with a Donkey’s face. His first may dance. Tricking the milk maids to dance with him. Mikey’s smile, rare and precious. And Gee taking his hand. Their first kiss and every kiss after. The ribbons twined around their wrists. The flowers in Gee’s hair. Midsummer.

Frank let out a huge breath, stunned. “Yeah, I remember.”

“So, do what princes do, Puck, in all the fairy tales,” Mikey said, and he stood and moved away.

Pete cackled and flitted after him.

Peppers snuffled and covered her nose with her paw.

Frank looked down at Gerard. He remembered everything now, his lover, his soul mate, the first time Frank tasted his skin, their fingers knotted together, the sound of Gerard sighing and calling his name; The first time Frank looked into Gerard’s eyes under a midsummer moon, the bonfire light gilding his smile.

“Oh,” breathed Frank. And he bent his head and did what princes do.

He kissed his one true love.

*

“And then they all lived happily ever after...” Gerard unrolled the sewing kit and selected a long, thin needle.

Frank had made straight for the storeroom, his home in this world, he recalled. And that was where he was now, reclining on his bed of cushions as Gerard tended his wounds.

“I thought you didn’t like needles,” Frank said, arching an eyebrow and smirking. He stretched his foot out into Gerard’s lap and wriggled his toes.

Gerard grinned. “I don’t like them in _me_ , but I can use them. In an emergency,” he said and wrinkled his nose with a smile.

Frank held out his hand and Gerard cupped his beneath it. Frank dropped something dark and moving, and Gerard caught it up and shook it out.

“Shadows, as Pan says, are not to be trusted,” laughed Gerard, and he began stitching the shadow back to Frank’s heel.

“Too right,” said Frank reclining on the pillows and watching Gerard down the length of his nose. “Mine was off at the first sign of danger. Rat bastard.”

The dark shape in Gerard’s hand tugged and yanked and tried to get away. Gerard just stroked it and pulled it back into place. “Hush,” he said. And Frank went quiet.

Things had been different after the kiss on the steps of the Library as they limped back to Pan’s, ragged, and messed up, but far from beaten.

The woods had all melted back Under The Hill, the doors to Mag Mell opened both ways again, and Chicago was its same old, bustling, Norm-filled self. No one batted an eyelash at four bloodied little guys and a limping Chihuahua trudging off the El at Oak Park and disappearing into the dark recesses of an alleyway off Mornington Cresent.

“Do they really all live happily ever after?” Frank asked, pushing himself up on his elbows and watching closely as Gerard tied a knot and bit off the Faerie silk with his teeth. Once he was done he turned his face and kissed Frank’s ankle.

“Naturally,” he sighed, and pressed another kiss, higher up, on Frank’s bare calf.

Pan’s had felt a little different too, bigger, and glossier, somehow. There were faces at the tables Frank had never seen, doorways in and out of the café that hadn’t been there before. But Frank knew what they were and where they led. Frank remembered them.

Frank sighed. “No sudden Dragon attacks, or evil enchantments?”

“None,” whispered Gerard, kissing and licking at the soft skin on the inside of Frank’s knee.

“And what about term deposits?” Frank said with a sigh of his own as Gerard moved up his leg, caressing and kissing his inner thigh. “They have much to do with them?”

“Never heard of ‘em,” Gerard breathed, before trailing the tip of his tongue up Frank’s belly.

Frank remembered...

Gerard stretched out above Frank and smiled. “Well, my prince. You’re all shadowed up and ready to party.”

...And Gerard was the best memory of all.

Frank giggled. “Or...”

“Or nothing. It’s Midsummer. Puck’s night. _Your_ night. You’re the guest of honor.” Gerard pushed himself away. “We can come back here later,” he purred. “If you’re very, very good.”

Frank swallowed. “I’ll see what I can do,” he said, and hauled himself off the bed.

*

The boys had really out done themselves with the decorations in the café. Lanterns filled with firefly pixies, and garlands of flowers festooned every entrance. The ceiling glittered with stars, and the walls shone with them too.

The raucous sounds of Brandon, Adam, Zach and Keenan bashing about on Faerie instruments on a little stage in the corner greeted them when they entered the café, as did the sight of Ray twirling Mikey around the dance floor, his hooves clipping and clopping in time with the music.

Pete was dancing too, with a little blond sprite Frank was having trouble placing. They danced past. “But you _look_ like a Tinkerbell,” he heard Pete say. And Frank only just caught the sound of the sprite sighing and saying, “Yes, but my _name_ is Patrick,” as they spun past.

In the corner Frank spotted Bob, bailed up a little against the wall by Ray’s bearded dragon, and Keenan’s ferret. Frank promised himself he’d go and rescue him in a second. He giggled to himself.

Peppers and Raisin were chasing each other’s tails while Mikey’s cat, Dewees, watched on with amused detachment. _Welcome back, Frankie,_ he purred as Frank passed.

“Thanks!” Frank chimed.

And because it was his party, his welcome home, someone handed him a goblet and the heady scent of mead rose up from it. Frank took a deep swig and smacked his lips.

Frank turned and Gerard was there. His burnished skin shone, and his eyes glittered. Someone had put flowers in his hair, and he was wearing a shirt made of green leaves. And he looked perfect.

Frank twined his arms around Gerard’s waist and looked up into his eyes. Gerard smiled, and leaning down he kissed Frank, licking his way into Frank’s mouth, stroking their tongues together. After some seconds he pulled back. “Happy Midsummer, Frankie,” he said.

Someone wolf whistled, and someone else cat-called, and someone yelled, ‘get a room.’

Frank grinned into the kiss and Gerard grinned back.

And they all lived happily ever after.

THE END.


End file.
